CALL    TO    ACTION 


AN  INTERPRETATION   OF  THE 


GREAT  UPRISING.  ITS  SOURCE  AND  CHUSES. 


BY 

JAMES  B.    WEAVER. 


"  you  take  my  house  when  you  do  take  the  prop 
That  doth  sustain  my  house;  you  take  my  life 
When  you  do  take  tlie  means  whereby  I  live." 

—Shakespeare. 

'The  enemy  comes  on  in  gallant  sliow; 

Their  bloody  sign  of  battle  is  hung  out. 
And  something  to  be  done  immediately." 

—Exclamatuj)i  of  the  Messenger  to  Octavitis 
and  Anthony  on  Uie  Plains  of  Phillippi. 


DES  MOINES: 

IOWA  PRrNTINO  CO.,  PRINTERS.  BINDERS  &  LITHOGRAPHEUS. 


COPYRIGHTED.  1892. 

BY 

JAMES  B.  WEAVER. 


LIBRARY 

.UNWERSITY  OF  CALTFOItNlA 
.      SANTA  BARBARA 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

I.  Th3  Senate 9 

II.  The  Speaker  of  the  House 49 

III.  Supreme  Court 67 

IV.  Improvident  Disposal  of  Public  Lands 136 

V.  Finance  in  War  and  Peace 184 

"VI.    Evolution  In  Crime,  or  Improved  Methods  of  Piracy 228. 

VII.    A  Comparison— Rome,  Britain,  and  the  United  States 269 

—  VIII.    The  Silver  Problem 297 

IX.  National  Debts 333 

X.  Finance  and  Ownership  of  Land 345 

XI.  The  Gerry-Mander,  with  original  Caricature 353 

XII.  Dives  and  Lazarus— Contrasts ,362 

XIII.  The  Pinkertons 379 

-  XIV.  Trusts 387 

—-XV.  National  Banks ,395 

XVI.    Transportation  Problem 409 

-    XVII.    The  Sub-Treasury. 424 

XVIII.    Remedies  Considered 432 

XIX.    The  Great  Uprising— Its  Interpretation— The  Country's  call  to 

Action 438 

XX.    Danger  and  Duty 441 


PREFACE. 


The  author's  object  in  publishing  this  book  is  to  call  at- 
tention to  some  of  the  more  serious  evils  which  now  disturb 
the  repose  of  American  society  and  threaten  the  overthrow 
of  free  institutions. 

We  are  nearing  a  serious  crisis.  If  the  present  strained 
relations  between  wealth  owners  and  wealth  producers  con- 
tinue much  longer  they  will  ripen  into  frightful  disaster. 
This  universal  discontent  must  be  quickly  interpreted  and 
its  causes  removed.  It  is  the  country's  imperative  Call  to 
Action,  and  can  not  be  longer  disregarded  with  impunity. 

The  sovereign  right  to  regulate  commerce  among  our 
magnificent  union  of  States,  and  to  control  the  instruments 
of  commerce,  the  right  to  issue  the  currency  and  to  deter- 
mine the  money  supply  for  sixty-three  million  people  and 
their  posterity,  have  been  leased  to  associated  speculators. 
The  brightest  lights  of  the  legal  profession  have  been 
lured  from  their  honorable  relation  to  the  people  in  the 
administration  of  justice,  and  through  evolution  in  crime 
the  corporation  has  taken  the  place  of  the  pirate;  and  finally 
a  bold  and  aggressive  plutocracy  has  usurped  the  Govern- 
ment and  is  using  it  as  a  policeman  to  enforce  its  insolent 
decrees.  It  has  filled  the  Senate  with  its  adherents,  it  con- 
trols the  popular  branch  of  the  National  Legislature  by 
cunningly  filling  the  Speaker's  chair  with  its  representa- 
tives, and  it  has  not  hesitated  to  tamper  with  our  Court  of 
last  resort.  The  public  domain  has  been  squandered,  our 
coal  fields  bartered  away,  our  forests  denuded,  our  people 
impoverished,  and  we  are  attempting  to  build  a  prosperous 


O  PKEFACE. 

commonwealth  among  people  who  are  being  robbed  of 
their  homes — a  task  as  futile  and  impossible  as  it  would  be 
to  attempt  to  cultivate  a  thrifty  forest  without  soil  to  sustain 
it.  The  corporation  has  been  placed  above  the  individual 
and  an  armed  body  of  cruel  mercenaries  permitted,  in  times 
of  public  peril,  to  discharge  police  duties  which  clearly  be- 
long to  the  State.  Wall  Street  has  become  the  Western 
extension  of  Threadneedle  and  Lombard  streets,  and  the 
wealthy  classes  of  England  and  America  have  been  brought 
into  touch.  They  are  no  longer  twain,  but  one,  and  have 
restored  to  Great  Britain  all  the  dominion  she  desires  over 
her  long  lost  colonies.  We  have  in  late  years  become  an 
important  prop  to  the  British  throne  and  the  hope  pf  her 
dominant  classes.  We  are  careful  not  to  act  in  monetary 
affairs  without  her  consent;  and  if  not  in  monetary  affairs, 
then  in  none  other,  for  money  has  become  the  Alpha  and 
Omega  of  modern  life. 

The  aristocratic  classes  in  the  old  country  constantly 
point  their  turbulent  starving  masses  to  the  United  States, 
in  proof  that  republics  afford  no  refuge  or  hope  to  the 
oppressed  millions  of  mankind. 

But  the  present  stupendous  uprising  among  the  industrial 
people  of  the  new  world  confounds  them.  It  is  the  second 
revolt  of  the  colonies.  It  required  seven  years  for  our 
fathers  to  overthrow  the  outward  manifestations  of  tyranny 
in  colonial  days.  But  our  weapons  now  are  not  carnal, 
but  mighty  to  the  pulling  down  of  strongholds.  Their 
children  can  vanquish  the  American  and  British  plutocracy 
combined  in  a  single  day — at  the  ballot-box.  They  have 
resolved  to  do  it.  If  this  book  can  in  the  least  aid  in  the 
mighty  work,  we  shall  be  content. 

The  few  haughty  millionaires  who  are  gathering  up  the 
riches  of  the  new  world,  make  use  of  certain  instruments 
to   accomplish   their   selfish    purposes.      The   DeoDle   are 


PREFACE.  7 

beginning  to  understand  what  these  instrumentaKties  arc. 
and  are  preparing  to  resist  their  destructive  force.  The 
purpose  of  this  book  is  to  make  clear  the  great  work  which 
lies  before  us.  It  must  be  thorough  and  complete  in  order 
to  be  permanent.  The  magnitude  of  our  task  will  appear 
as  we  advance  in  the  struggle. 

We  have  made  no  attack  upon  individuals,  but  have  con- 
fined our  criticisms  to  evil  systems  and  baleful  legislation. 
We  have  endeavored  to  be  accurate,  but  claim  no  literary 
merit  for  our  effort.  We  submit  the  work  to  the  criticism 
of  our  co-temporaries  and  the  candid  consideration  of 
patriotic  people. 

The  Authok. 


R  CALL  TO  ACTION. 


.^^. 


CHAPTKR   I. 


THE  SENATE. 


The  English  Parliament  was  copied  after  the  Saxon 
National  Assemblies.  The  Gemot,  as  it  was  called,  con- 
sisted of  a  single  body  and  was  composed  of  the  great  and 
powerful  supporters  and  defenders  of  the  King.  The 
Magna  Charta  provided  for  the  addition  of  a  certain  num- 
ber of  Lords  and  church  dignitaries,  to  be  selected  from  the 
spiritual  hierarchy,  such  as  Arch- bishops.  Bishops  and 
Abbots.  To  these  theocratic  law  makers  were  referred, 
among  other  important  matters,  all  questions  relating  to 
taxation.  From  the  remotest  period  in  the  history  of  the 
Saxons  it  had  been  the  settled  policy  never  to  submit  to  the 
imposition  of  taxes  unless  the  subject  had  consented  thereto 
either  personally  or  through  some  authorized  representative. 
So  scant  were  the  royal  revenues  at  this  remote  period,  as 
compared  with  the  extravagant  expenditures,  that  it  was 
with  extreme  difficulty  that  the  wants  of  the  crown  and 
the  nobility  could  be  supplied  at  all;  and  history  shows 
that  in  nearly  every  instance  the  taxes  were  voted  only  in 
return  for  some  new  concession  of  liberty  to  the  people. 
During  the  fitful  intervals  of  peace,  wealth  accumulated  and 
centers  of  population  and  commerce  multiplied.  Naturally 
enough  these  communities,  in  course  of  time,  asked  for 
representation  in  the  great  council.  The  prince  and  his 
barons  consented — for  a  price.  The  purchase  was  made 
and  in  this  way  the  great  body  of  the  English  people,  who 
were  neither  clerical  nor  noble  and  who  were  simply  organ- 


10  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

ized  into  "communities,"  and  shires,  secured  a  hearing  and 
gradually  acquired  a  foothold  among  the  law  makers  of  the 
realm.  With  the  lapse  of  time  and  the  increase  of  popula 
tion  and  wealth,  came  the  extension  of  suffrage.  Wlien 
the  crown  was  powerful  and  the  unrepresented  people 
weak,  the  right  of  representation  was  sold  for  so  much 
money  paid  directly  into  the  royal  treasur}'.  When  the 
electors  became  numerous  and  had  the  power  of  electing 
members  of  Parliament  within  their  own  hands,  they  in  turn 
sold  their  votes  to  the  highest  bidder.  Mr.  May,  in  his 
excellent  work  on  the  British  constitution,  informs  us  that 
up  to  within  a  very  recent  period,  it  was  a  common  thing 
for  candidates  for  Parliament  to  visit  the  locality  of  their  can- 
didacy and  with  ready  cash  purchase  the  votes  necessary  to 
elect  them,  and  then  close  the  negotiations  with  an  agree- 
ment properly  signed  and  witnessed.  But  thanks  to  the 
extension  of  suffrage,  and  cognate  reforms,  England  of 
to-day  is  comparatively  free  from  this  abuse.  There  is 
virtue  in  the  people,  and  the  plague  spots  of  the  world 
have  often  been  healed  by  jostling  against  the  multitude — 
by  reaching  out  and  touching  the  hem  of  their  garments. 

For  many  years  the  Commons  occupied  the  same  hall 
with  the  Barons  and  Lords.  As  they  incl-eased  in  numbers 
the  Lords  consented  that  these  plebeian  intruders  might 
occupy  a  separate  hall.  The  Commons  represented  those 
who  paid  the  taxes  and  fought  the  battles,  and  soon  after 
the  separation  into  the  two  houses  or  halls,  they  took  the 
question  of  taxes  exclusively  into  their  own  hands.  The 
power  of  the  Commons  has  increased  through  all  its  his- 
tory, while  that  of  the  Lords  has  constantly  waned.  -These 
manifestations  of  decay  on  the  one  hand  and  of  growth  on 
the  other,  are  both  natural  and  philosophic.  The  functions 
of  the  House  are  normal  and  legitimate,  while  those  of  the 
Lords  are  imposed  by  law  and  are  purely  arbitrary  and 


THE    SENATE.  11 

artificial.  Hence  the  tendency  among  enlightened  people 
is  to  cherish  the  one  and  reject  the  other.  Mr.  Gladstone, 
in  a  speech  delivered  at  ISTewcastle,  in  October  of  this  year, 
favors  the  utter  abolition  of  the  House  of  Lords.  He 
struck  a  popular  chord  which  was  already  vibrating  in 
America. 

The  revolt  which  brought  on  the  American  revolution 
was  not  so  much  against  British  institutions  as  against 
the  tyranny  of",  administration.  England,  except  under 
Cromwell's  Commonwealth,  had  a  House  of  Lords,  there- 
fore, it  was  argued,  the  young  repubHc  must  have  a  similar 
body;  the  Lords  were  men  of  great  wealth  and  represented 
the  aristocracy  of  the  realm,  therefore  our  senators  should 
be  selected  because  of  their  holdings  in  order  that  they 
might  represent  the  wealth  of  this  country;  the  Lords  were 
not  compelled  to  look  to  the  people  for  their  positions,  but 
either  inherited  them  from  their  ancestors  or  received  them 
at  the  hands  of  the  sovereign;  therefore  there  should  be 
some  intervening  select  body  of  men  in  this  country  who 
should  designate  and  select  our  Senators.  It  might  be 
safe,  they  thought,  to  intrust  the  commonalty  to  select  their 
State  Legislators  and  national  Representatives,  but  here  their 
power  must  cease.  It  is^ould  be  positively  dangerous  to  go 
farther.  Alexander  Hamilton  likened  the  method  decided 
upon  to  a  filter.  The  State  Legislatures  were  ''filtered" 
through  the  people.  This  refined  and  purified  them,  of 
course.  The  Senators,  in  turn,  were  to  be  "  filtered  "  through 
the  Legislatures.  This  removed  them,  with  great  prudence, 
far  enough  from  the  common  herd  to  enable  the  wealthy 
classes  to  repose  confidence  in  them.  It  was  argued  that 
this  would  afford  a  safe  retreat  from  the  excesses  of  the 
multitude  and  the  follies  of  democracy.  Hence  they  sev- 
ered the  legislative  department  and  relegated  the  House 
to  the  vote  holders  and  the  Senate  to  the  wealth  holders. 


12  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

When  they  reached  the  Executive,  it  was,  of  course,  pre- 
posterous to  think  of  electing  that  officer  directly  by  the 
people.  If  the  upper  house  of  the  National  Legislature 
■was  too  exalted  to  admit  of  popular  selection,  of  course  it 
would  be  shocking  to  think  of  electing  a  President  by  that 
method.  "Whoever  heard  of  a  British  king  being  chosen 
by  the  multitude?  Did  he  not  wear  his  crown  by  divine 
authority?  Our  President  could  not  hope  to  derive  his 
office  from  so  high  a  source,  and  yet  it  would  never  do  to 
intrust  his  selection  directly  to  the  common  people.  Who 
so  rash  as  to  think  of  cutting  loose  from  the  doctrine  oijure 
divino  and  deferring  to  the  opinions  and  wishes  of  the  vulgar 
majority?  No,  if  we  were  not  to  have  divine  selection,  it 
were  rash  to  go  to  the  other  extreme  and  adopt  direct  plebe- 
ian election;  and  so,  with  great  solemnity,  the  middle  ground 
was  taken — that  of  selection  by  the  Hamiltonian  process  of 
infiltration.  Hence  the  Electoral  College  was  constructed. 
The  Constitution  does  not  contemplate,  nor  did  its  founders 
ever  dream  of  great  national  nominating  conventions  and 
Presidential  campaigns  such  as  are  common  in  our  day. 
All  that  the  law  requires  is  for  the  people  in  the  several 
states  to  repair  to  the  polls  every  four  years,  at  the  stated 
time,  and  quietly  vote  for  Presidential  Electors,  corres- 
ponding in  number  to  the  whole  number  of  Senators 
and  Representatives  in  Congress.  The  persons  thus  or- 
dained and  consecrated  in  turn  select  the  chief  magis- 
trate. So  far  as  the  law  is  concerned  it  is  not  necessary 
that  a  single  name  shall  be  designated  by  anybody  in  con- 
nection with  that  high  office  prior  to  the  day  upon  which 
the  electors  cast  their  votes.  Everything  in  connection 
with  our  Presidential  elections  which  is  outside  of  this  pre- 
scribed formula  is  extra-constitutional.  The  electors  may 
select  whomsoever  they  please  for  President  and  Yice- 
President,   provided  they  be   native-born  citizens  of  the 


THE   SENATE.  13 

United  States,  thirty-five  years  of  age,  and  do  not  both 
reside  in  the  same  state.  Prior  to  the  year  1824,  even  the 
Electors  were  chosen  by  the  State  Legislatures  instead  of  by 
the  people,  the  State  Legislatures  having  the  power  to  desig- 
nate the  manner  of  their  selection.  At  present  the  practice 
is  for  a  few  clever  manipulators  and  party  managers  to 
select  their  favorite  for  the  Presidential  office  and  designate 
him  in  National  convention.  Following  this,  usually,  some- 
times before,  the  same  men  select  the  electors  in  the  state 
conventions.  The  multitude,  having  no  alternative  left, 
may  then  be  safely  entrusted  with  the  work  of  carrying  the 
torches,  doing  the  voting  and  footing  the  bills.  The  Sen- 
ators, having  been  chosen  by  practically  the  same  process 
of  transudation,  recognize  in  the  Vice-President  the  shadow 
of  the  Executive  and  their  natural  presiding  officer.  This 
brings  the  Executive  and  the  upper  house  en  rapport,  and 
the  two  combined  are  at  once  prepared  to  resist  with  lordly 
and  platonic  firmness  all  radical  innovations  threatened  by 
the  multitude.  "We  call  this  government  by  the  people.  If 
it  were  not  for  the  label  it  would  never  be  so  recognized. 

The  controversy  which  took  place  in  the  Federal  Con- 
stitutional Convention  concerning  the  method  of  choosing 
United  States  Senators,  is  a  most  interesting  study.  Among 
other  things  to  be  prominently  noticed  therein  are  the  con- 
fused and  contradictory  opinions  entertained  by  the  fathers 
relating  to  this  important  subject.  Some  were  in  favor  of 
their  appointment  for  life  by  the  Executive;  others  wished 
them  to  be  chosen  by  the  House  of  Eepresentatives;  a 
strong  minority  thought  they  should  be  selected  by  the 
people  in  the  several  States;  a  few  were  of  the  opinion  that 
they  should  be  chosen  from  districts  composed  of  more 
than  one  State,  and  should  be  restricted  to  a  very  small 
number.  Some  members  of  the  Convention  thought  they 
should  consist  of  persons  of  wealth  and  influence,  and  be 


14  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

chosen  to  represent  the  property  rather  than  the  people, 
and  be  empowered  to  choose  the  President  and  Yice-Presi- 
dent  of  the  United  States. 

After  protracted  delaj^  and  much  discussion,  however, 
the  present  method  of  selection  by  the  State  Legislatures 
was  adopted  by  the  vote  of  ten  States,  on  the  Tth  day  of 
June,  1787,  on  m.otion  of  Mr.  Dickinson,  of  Delaware. 

Mr.  Dickinson  stated  that  he  had  two  reasons  for  his 
motion:  "First,  because  the  sense  of  the  States  would  be 
better  collected  through  their  governments,  than  immedi- 
ately from  the  people  at  large;  secondly,  because  he  wished 
the  Senate  to  consist  of  the  most  distinguished  characters, 
distinguished  for  their  rank  in  life  and  their  weight  of  prop- 
erty, and  bearing  as  strong  a  likeness  to  the  British  House 
of  Lords  as  possible,  and  he  thought  such  characters  more 
likely  to  be  selected  by  the  State  Legislatures,  than  in  any 
other  mode."    (Madison  papers,  page  813.) 

The  operation  of  this  method  of  selection  during  the 
latter  half  of  the  century,  at  least,  has  fully  met  the  expec- 
tations of  its  author.  That  Mr.  Dickinson  was  fervently 
attached  to  the  British  monarchy  is  abundantly  shown  by 
his  repeated  eulogiums  upon  the  British  Constitution  during 
the  sessions  of  the  Convention,  and  by  the  further  fact 
that  eleven  years  prior  to  the  meeting  of  the  Federal  Con- 
vention, and  while  he  was  a  member  of  the  Continental 
Congress,  he  was  the  only  member  of  that  body  who 
declined  to  sign  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

THE   EAELT   SENATE. 

The  first  twenty  years  after  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu- 
tion were  spent  in  adjusting  the  machinery  of  the  new 
government.  Then  came  the  controvers}'-  with  Great 
Britain  which  culminated  in  the  war  of  1812.  Following 
the  successful  issue  of  that  struggle  came  the  questions  of 


THE    SENATE.  15 

re-chartering  the  United  States  bank,  internal  improve- 
ment, the  boundary  line  between  the  treaty  making  and 
the  legislative  power,  the  troubles  growing  out  of  the  cele- 
brated Hartford  Convention,  the  compromise  measure  of 
1820,  which  established  the  line  of  36-30,  nullification  in 
South  Carolina,  the  Indian  wars,  and  the  Mexican  war. 
Then  followed  a  wide-spread  slavery  agitation  which  shook 
the  country  from  center  to  circumference,  and  which  finally 
resulted  in  civil  war.  These,  and  other  important  ques- 
tions engaged  public  attention  for  about  seventy  years. 
The  chief  characters  who  figured  from  1Y89  to  1850 
would  have  adorned  any  age.  As  a  rule,  the  Senate 
was  filled  with  men  justly  distinguished  for  their  tal- 
ent—not wealth — and  whether,  as  judged  by  the  pres- 
ent generation,  they  entertained  correct  or  incorrect 
opinions  of  public  policy,  they  were  selected  because 
they  were  known  by  the  whole  body  of  the  people  to  repre- 
sent some  idea — some  policy — and  they  retained  their 
positions  for  that  reason.  This  brought  together  a  body  of 
strong  men  and  made  the  Senate  the  theater  of  great  intel- 
lectual conflicts.  A  glance  at  some  of  the  great  names 
who  made  the  Senate  illustrious  during  the  first  half 
century  under  the  constitution,  will  be  of  interest.  From 
Massachusetts  we  had  John  Quincy  Adams,  Daniel  Web- 
ster, Timothy  Pickering  and  Kufus  Choate,  From  Con- 
necticut, Koger  Sherman,  Oliver  Ellsworth  and  Jonathan 
Trumbull.  From  New  York,  Gouveneur  Morris,  Martin 
Yan  Buren,  Daniel  S.  Dickinson,  Kufus  King,  Silas  Wright 
and  John  A.  Dix.  From  New  Jersey,  William  L.  Dayton, 
Theodore  Frelinghuysen.  From  Pennsylvania,  James 
Buchanan  and  Simon  Cameron.  From  Delaware,  Caesar 
A.  Rodney,  James  Bayard,  John  M.  and  Charles  Clayton 
and  Richard  H.  Bayard.  From  Maryland,  Charles  Car- 
roll, of  Carrollton,  William  Pinkney  and  Reverdy  Johnson. 


16  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

From  Yirginia,  James  Monroe,  John  Randolph  and 
Richard  Henry  Lee.  From  North  Carolina,  "W.  P.  Man- 
gum.  South  Carolina,  Charles  Pinkney,  Robert  Young 
Haine  and  John  C.  Calhoun.  Kentucky,  Henry  Clay, 
John  J.  Crittenden,  Humphrey  Marshall,  John  Brecken- 
ridge  and  Phelix  Grundy.  Ohio,  Thomas  Corwin,  Thomas 
Ewing  and  William  Allen.  Indiana,  William  Hendricks, 
Edward  A.  Hannegan  and  Albert  S.  White.  Mississippi, 
George  Poindexter  and  Robert  J.  Walker.  Maine,  John 
Chandler  and  John  Ruggles.  Missouri,  Thomas  H.  Ben- 
ton. Michigan,  Lewis  Cass.  Florida,  David  L.  Yulee. 
Texas,  Sam  Houston.  Iowa,  A.  C.  Dodge  and  Geo.  W. 
Jones.  Almost  every  State  within  the  Union  was  repre- 
sented at  this  time  by  statesmen  possessing  national  fame 
and  inj&uence.  They  did  not  rise  above  criticism,  of 
course.  Indeed,  they  were  subject  to  that  infirmity  or 
perversity  of  judgment  which  caused  them  to  transmit  to 
posterity  a  solemn  duty  which  they  should  have  discharged 
themselves  and  which,  in  after  years,  had  to  be  atoned  for 
in  blood. 

Some  one  has  well  said  that  if  a  man  would  properly  esti- 
mate public  questions  and  foresee  public  crises,  he  must 
lay  aside  personal  ambition  and  stubbornly  and  persistently 
decline  official  position.  The  suggestion  is  full  of  wisdom. 
With  but  few  exceptions  the  official  managers  of  public 
affairs  and  the  law-makers,  in  periods  of  public  tranquility, 
have  been  deaf  to  the  wrongs  and  blind  to  the  signs  of  the 
times  in  which  they  lived.  They  have  generally  failed  even 
to  comprehend  the  tremendous  fact  of  impending  revolu- 
tion when  it  was  just  ready  to  burst  upon  them  in  devasta- 
ting fury.  The  Magna  Charta  was  extorted  from  a  ruler 
who  was  blind  to  the  march  of  events;  Cromwell  became 
Lord  Protector  of  England  because  of  another  obdurate 
prince;  George  III  and  his  ministry  understood  neither  the 


THE    SENATE.  17 

character  of  the  colonists  whom  they  were  oppressing  nor 
the  manifest  destiny  of  the  new  world.  Louis  XVI,  of 
France,  and  his  ministers,  had  they  comprehended  the 
march  of  ideas  and  the  consequences  likely  to  follow  their 
own  corrupt  and  oppressive  reijjn  and  that  of  their  imme- 
diate and  profligate  predecessors,  could  easily  have  averted 
the  French  Revolution,  saved  their  heads  and  withheld 
from  history  the  most  tragic  chapter  in  the  blood-stained 
annals  of  mankind.  But  they  could  not  comprehend  the 
situation.  Neither  would  they  listen  to  those  who  did. 
Sins  of  omission  are  bad  enough  and  lead  to  fearful  conse- 
quences. But  how  frightful  the  result  when  aggressive 
wrong  doing  takes  the  place  of  duty  omitted.  Dut}' 
omitted  sits  idle  and  waits  for  calamity  to  overtake  it.  The 
aggressive  wrong-doer  turns  round  and  starts  in  quest  of 
the  avenger,  meets  him  half  way  and  hastens  the  catas- 
trophe. As  a  rule,  men  and  women  in  the  private  walks  of 
life — the  sufferers — are  first  to  apprehend  impending  dan- 
ger, and  it  is  their  sleepless  energies  which  finally  arouse 
the  drowsy  conscience  of  the  nations. 

The  renewal  of  the  anti-slavery  controvers3%  which 
occurred  immediately  preceding  and  following  the  com- 
promise measures  of  1850,  developed  and  inducted  into 
official  life  a  new  group  of  men,  who  represented  the  great 
forces  which  made  up  the  irrepressible  conflict  destined  to 
burst  upon  the  nation  at  the  end  of  that  decade.  Illustri 
ous  among  these  were  Seward,  of  New  York,  Hamlin  and 
Fessenden,  of  Maine,  James  Harlan,  of  Iowa,  Hunter  and 
Mason,  of  Virginia,  Wade  and  Chase,  of  Ohio,  Hale,  of. 
New  Hampshire,  Sumner  and  Wilson,  of  Massachusetts, 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  of  Illinois,  Bell,  of  Tennessee,  Crit- 
tenden, of  Kentucky,  Robert  Toombs,  of  Georgia,  and 
Jndah  P.  Benjamin,  of  Louisiana. 


18  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

When  hostilities  began  between  the  two  sections,  many 
of  the  southern  Senators  withdrew,  and  within  a  brief 
period  the  Senate  was  re-inforced  by  Grimes,  of  Iowa, 
Trumbull,  of  Illinois,  Sherman,  of  Ohio,  Boutwell,  Mor- 
rill, Doolittle,  and  others,  all  men  of  distinguished  ability. 
But  when  hostilities  were  at  their  heighth  the  following 
gentlemen  were  among  the  most  distinguished  of  the 

WAK   GKODP   OF   SENATORS. 

Charles  Sumner  and  Henry  Wilson,  of  Massachusetts, 
B.  F.  Wade  and  John  Sherman,  of  Ohio,  James  Harlan 
and  James  W.  Grimes,  of  Iowa,  John  P.  Hale,  of  New 
Hampshire,  William  Pitt  Fessenden,  of  Maine,  Lyman 
Trumbull,  of  Illinois,  Lot  M.  Morrill,  of  Maine,  James  R. 
Doolittle,  of  Wisconsin,  and  Foote,  of  Vermont. 

These  were  all  men  of  extraordinary  intellectual  strength. 
They  passed  to  their  positions  through  struggles  which 
tested  their  capacity  and  developed  their  transcendent 
powers.  At  the  appointed  time  they  sprang  into  the  arena 
like  gladiators  and  challenged  the  world  to  intellectual 
combat.  There  were  giants  in  those  days.  Mr.  Douglas 
closed  his  eyes  upon  life  just  as  the  curtain  rose  upon  the 
great  drama.  Most  of  the  others  tilled  their  places  until 
the  curtain  fell  over  the  last  scene  and  then  joined  the 
silent  majority.  A  few — Sherman,  Morrill,  Trumbull  and 
Harlan — still  survive  and  are  in  the  enjoyment  of  robust 
and  serene  old  age. 

Sumner  was  the  diplomat  of  the  group  —  the  scholarly 
evangel  of  liberty  and  the  flaming  tongue  of  fire;  Chase, 
the  fiscal  manager  and  stately  jurist;  Wade,  the  rugged, 
intellectual  athlete;  Harlan,  the  logician,  the  resistless 
orator,  practical  legislator  and  unerring  interpretor  oi 
international  law;   Sherman,   the  adroit    financier,   while 


THE   SENATE.  IS 

Grrimes,  Trumbull  and  Doolittle  were  the  great  law- 
yers of  the  body.  All  were  thoroughly  schooled  in 
practical  affairs,  accomplished  legislators  and  filled  their 
places  with  matchless  ability.  With  but  few  exceptions 
all  of  these  great  characters  have  passed  from  the  theater 
of  action,  and  a 

THIKD    GKOUP, 

the  immediate  successors  of  the  second,  now  briefly  claims 
our  attention.  A  few  of  the  second  are  found  also  in  the 
third.  Among  the  most  distinguished  characters  of  the 
third  group  were  Roscoe  Conkling,  Matthew  H.  Carpenter, 
Oliver  P.  Morton,  John  Sherman,  George  F.  Hoar,  George 
F.  Edmunds,  Henry  L.  Daws,  David  Davis,  John  A.  Logan, 
William  B.  Allison,  James  Beck,  James  G.  Blaine,  John 
J.  Ingalls,  Daniel  Yorhees,  Preston  B.  Plumb,  Joseph  E. 
Brown,  L-  Q-  C.  Lamar,  Benjamin  H.  Hill,  Thomas  F. 
Bayard,  John  P.  Jones,  Francis  Kernan  and  Allan  G. 
Thurman.  Fifteen  have  disappeared  from  this  group. 
Nine  have  died  and  six  others  are  not  now  in  the  Senate. 

The  Senate  of  1861-5  was  called  upon  to  legislate  amid 
the  perils  of  civil  war.  To  the  third  group  was  given  the 
task  of  reconstructing  and  readjusting  civil  government 
after  the  conflict  was  over.  If  peace  hath  her  victories  no 
less  renowned  than  war,  it  must  be  that  she  hath  her  foes 
and  perils  also.  The  courage  which  can  successfully  meet 
and  foil  the  tempter  is  superior  to  that  required  in  the 
shock  of  battle.  The  former  besieges  the  spirit,  the  latter 
assails  only  the  body.  The  one  is  an  enchantress  and  lures 
us  to  destruction,  while  the  other  is  a  mailed  warrior  and 
smites  only  with  the  sword. 

It  seems  strange  that  the  legislators  of  the  war  and 
reconstruction  periods  failed  to  comprehend  that  those  who 


20  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

drove  hard  bargains  and  exacted  cruel  concessions  when 
the  Republic  was  in  peril,  were  as  hostile  to  the.  spirit  oi 
liberty,  though  not  so  brave,  as  the  armed  Confederate. 
The  motto  of  the  Confederate  leader  was,  "Give  us  oui 
slaves  and  a  dissevered  Union  or  we  will  take  them  by 
force;"  while  that  of  the  money  shark  was,  "If  you  dc 
not  give  us  our  price  you  can  perish."  The  slaveholder 
lost  his  human  chattels  and  the  Confederacy  perished.  Bui 
the  tyranny  of  capital  was  not  broken  by  the  war.  On  the 
contrary  it  was  augmented  beyond  measure.  The  money 
power  gained  all  that  the  slaveholder  lost.  It  conquered 
the  whole  country  and  chained  the  children  of  toil,  both 
black  and  white,  to  its  chariot  wheels.  They  threw  the 
husk  of  liberty  to  the  newly  emancipated  slave  and  appro- 
priated to  themselves  the  corn.  All  that  liberty  gained  in 
that  struggle  was  the  extension  of  its  nominal  area  far 
enough  to  include  the  black  man.  Surrounded  by  the 
perils  of  battle,  the  statesman  of  the  war  period  made  con- 
cessions which  strengthened  the  tyranny  of  capital  beyond 
the  power  of  the  imagination  to  conceive.  In  the  days  of 
reconstruction  our  leaders  surrendered  to  it  without  a 
struggle.  The  battle  for  substantial  and  real  emancipation 
has  yet  to  be  fought  and  it  is  but  just  ahead. 

AN   ALSATIAN   DEN. 

The  leading  members  of  the  United  States  Senate  during 
the  war  and  reconstruction  periods  are  chiefly  responsible 
for  the  unconscionable  acts  of  legislation  which  have  cursed 
the  Nation  for  over  a  quarter  of  a  century  and  which,  if 
not  speedily  corrected,  are  likely  to  precipitate  a  tragic 
revolution.  This  chain  of  legislation  began  in  the  early 
days  of  the  war  and  was  finished  during  the  period  of 
reconstruction.  The  following  were  enacted  during  the 
war  period: 


THE   SENATE-  21 

First.  The  exception  clause  of  the  Lesfal  Tender  ad 
which  placed  a  premium  on  gold  for  the  benefit  of  gold 
gamblers,  and  at  the  same  time  depreciated  the  pay  of  the 
soldier  fully  one-half  and  greatly  increased  public  expen 
ditures.  It  in  fact  placed  the  country  at  the  mercy  of  the 
New  York  and  European  speculators  and  stock  jobbers 
during  the  whole  period  of  the  war.  The  exception  clause 
was  not  in  the  bill  when  it  passed  the  House.  It  was 
inserted  in  the  Senate. 

Second.  The  law  which  authorized  the  issue  of  bonds. 
The  exigencies  of  war  never  called  for  the  issae  of  a  sinsfle* 
bond.  Those  who  framed  the  law  simply  intended  to  pro-* 
vide  an  opportunity  for  speculators  whereby  they  could  dis- 
pose of,  at  its  face  value  in  United  States  bonds,  the  paper 
which  they  had  purposely  depreciated  and  afterward  pur- 
chased. They  procured  one  law  which  enabled  them  to 
purchase  Greenbacks  at  less  than  their  face  value,  and 
another  which  empowered  them  to  realize  in  gold  the  face 
value  of  the  Greenbacks.  They  induced  Congress  to  liter- 
ally legislate  hundreds  of  millions  of  wealth  into  their 
coffers. 

Third.  The  National  bank  act.  This  act  authorizes  the 
bond  holder  to  deposit  his  gold  bearing  bonds  and  secure 
from  the  treasury  ninety  per  cent  of  his  investment,  and 
Btill  draw  quarterly  from  the  people  interest  on  the  whole 
amount,  of  the  bond.  It  further  invested  the  associated 
banks  with  -the  power  which  belongs  to  the  Government — 
the  power  to  issue  the  money  of  the  people  and  regulate 
its  volume. 

Fourth.  The  Land  Grant  acts.  By  these  acts  the  Home- 
stead law  was  made  a  nullity  and  the  Public  domain  given 
away  to  corporations,  syndicates,  and  foreign  nabobs. 

Fifth.  The  act  whic^  surrendered  the  first  mortgage 
lien  of  the  government,  on  the  Pacific  railroads,  and  com- 


22  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

pelled  the  people  to  pay  interest  on  the  money  which  they 
advanced  to  construct  the  roads.  These  bonds  amounted 
to  $64,623,512.  We  have  paid  on  them,  in  interest,  up  to 
August,  1891,  the  sum  of  $65,350,008.64,  and  the  end  is 
Qot  yet.  The  company  now  defies  the  government  and 
laughs  at  the  helplessness  of  the  people. 

Sixth.  The  contraction  act  of  1866,  which  authorized 
the  destruction  of  our  currency  and  its  conversion  into 
interest-bearing,  non-circulating,  and  non-taxable  debt. 
Under  this  act  more  than  one  billion  of  the  currency  was 
taken  from  circulation  and  destroyed.  All  these  acts  were 
passed  under  the  supervision  of  the  war  group  of  Senators. 

The  following  acts  were  passed  during  the  reign  of  the 
third,  or  reconstruction  group: 

The  Credit  Strengthening  act  of  1869. 
The  act  of  1873,  demonetizing  silver. 
The  Resumption  act  of  1875. 

The  object  of  the  first  was  to  pledge  the  payment  of  the 
entire  public  debt  in  gold.  It  looked  to  changing  the  con- 
tract in  the  interest  of  the  grasping  public  creditor,  long 
after  the  perils  of  war  had  passed  and  after  our  brave 
soldiers  had  abundantly  strengthened  the  public  credit  by 
their  valor  and  blood.  The  war  was  over  and  the  bonds 
were  selling  at  a  premium  at  the  time  the  act  was  passed. 

The  second  stealthily  struck  down  one-half  of  our  coin 
money,  doubled  the  value  of  gold  and  converted  the  coin 
bonds  into  gold  obligations. 

The  third,  under  the  guise  of  resuming  specie  payments, 
in  fact  provided  for  the  utter  destruction  of  our  legal 
tender  currency  and  the  increase  of  the  bonded  debt.  The 
calamity  was  in  part  averted  by  subsequent  legislation 
which  stopped  the  destruction  of  the  greenback  and  par- 
tially remonetized  silver.     Public  sentiment  came  to  the 


THE   SENATE.  23 

rescue,    but  the   conspirators   yielded  with   manifest  and 
dogged  reluctance. 

Various  degrees  of  responsibility  attach,  of  course,  to 
the  public  servants  concerned  in  the  passage  of  these 
accursed  laws.  Charity,  if  not  absolute  regard  for  truth, 
requires  us  all  to  conclude  that  most  of  these  legislators 
were  at  the  time  unadvised  concerning  the  motives  of  those 
who  forced  this  pitiless  legislation  upon  the- country.  The 
majority,  perhaps,  were  as  clay  in  the  hands  of  the  potter. 
A  few  cruel  and  skillful  schemers  moulded  them  at  will. 
Honest  men  had  their  eyes  on  the  salvation  of  the  Union. 
Bad  men  took  advantage  of  the  situation.  It  was  even  sc 
at  the  very  foundation  of  our  government.  Our  fathers 
were  forced,  by  professed  friends  of  liberty,  to  make 
choice  of  evils.  Posterity  had  to  atone  for  it.  So,  many 
of  our  legislators,  during  the  periods  of  war  and  recon- 
struction, fell  short  of  their  duty.  A  few  were  willfully 
vicious.  We  are  now  suffering  the  penalty.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  the  next  generation  may  not  have  occasion  to 
accuse  those  who  shall  legislate  amid  the  tergiversations  oi 
the  new  revolution. 

GKEATER  PEKIL. 

The  slave  holding  aristocracy,  restricted  both  as  to  local- 
ity and  influence,  was  destroyed  by  the  war  only  to  be  sue 
ceeded  by  an  infinitely  more  dangerous  and  powerful  aris- 
tocracy of  wealth,  which  now  pervades  every  State  and 
aspires  to  universal  dominion.  Its  first  conquest  was  the 
subjugation  of  the  dominant  political  party  of  the  nation, 
while  it  required  the  other  to  keep  the  peace,  under  the 
threat  that  if  it  did  not  succumb  it  should  never  come  intc 
power. 

Next  it  secured  control  of  State  politics,  and  finally  found 
expression  in  a  vast  net  work  of  corporations  which  have 


24  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

seized  upon  almost  every  field  of  labor  aud  every  depart 
ment  of  human  ejffort.  Neither  the  military  achievements 
of  Caesar,  the  exploits  of  Cyrus,  Hannibal,  Alexander, 
nor  the  dazzling  conquests  of  Napoleon  in  the  fields  of  war, 
can  compare  with  the  stupendous  victories  of  organized 
capital  in  this  country  during  the  past  twenty-five  years. 
They  have  outstripped  the  imagination,  rendered  fiction 
dull  and  uninteresting,  and  robbed  romance  of  its  charms. 
The  chief  spirits  through  whose  agency  all  these  things 
have  been  accomplished  are  not  unmindful  that  they  are  in 
conflict  with  both  private  right  and  the  public  welfare. 
They,  above  all  others,  know  the  extent  of  their  wrong 
doing,  and  they  fear  reprisals  at  the  hands  of  the  people. 
To  prevent  remedial  legislation  they  have  filled  the  Senate 
of  the  United  States  with  men  who  represent  the  corpora- 
tions and  the  various  phases  of  organized  greed.  The 
ideal  Senate,  longed  for  by  Mr.  Dickinson — a  Senate  com- 
posed of  men  of  wealth  and  resembling  the  British  House 
of  Lords — has  been  realized  and  has  long  been  in  full 
operation.  The  method  of  selection  was  found  to  be  pecul- 
iarly well  fitted  to  their  scheme.  There  is  one  characteris- 
tic common  to  all  wrong  doers — they  work  in  the  dark  and 
conceal  their  motives.  You  know  nothing  of  their  purpose 
until  the  stab  is  inflicted.  Like  the  cat,  they  walk  in  quest 
of  prey  with  velvet  feet;  and  like  the  assassin,  they  lie  in 
wait  and  spring  upon  you  without  warning.  The  corpora- 
tions never  make  public  their  purpose.  They  hold  no  pub- 
lic meetings.  Their  plans  are  laid  in  the  counting  room, 
around  the  lunch  table,  and  in  the  secret  meetings  of  their 
directors  away  from  the  public.  When  the  plan  is  matured, 
a  skillful  agent  is  employed  to  carry  it  out,  and  a  check  is 
drawn  to  cover  expenses.  The  people  at  large  are  abou  t 
their  daily  toil  in  the  field  and  the  workshop.  They  are 
honest,  unsuspecting,  patriotic,  aud  devoted  to  their  respec- 


THE    SENATE. 


tive  parties.  The  work  that  is  to  rob  and  ruin  them  is 
bein^  done  under  cover.  The  corporations — apparently 
wholly  indifferent — having  determined  whom  they  wish  to 
elect  to  the  United  States  Senate,  the  next  thing  in  order  is 
to  secure  the  nomination  of  suitable  Legislative  candidates — 
men  who  can  be  trusted  to  do  their  bidding.  Secure  in 
this,  no  effort  or  expense  is  spared  to  insure  a  triumph  at 
the  polls.  Usually  the  name  of  the  man  whom  they  intend 
to  elect  to  the  Senate  is  kept  in  the  background.  The  can- 
vass is  made  wholly  with  reference  to  other  issues.  But  as 
soon  as  the  election  is  over,  a  venal  subsidized  press  which 
has  been  party  to  the  concealment  during  the  campaign, 
suddenly  throws  off  the  mask  and  discovers  that  the  sena- 
torial question  is  all  important  and  you  then  hear  of  noth- 
ing else.  They  suddenly  discover  that  Mr.  A  or  B  is  just 
the  right  man  for  the  position,  and  the  one  above  all  others 
whom  the  party  and  the  State  should  delight  to  honor.  At 
the  proper  time  headquarters  are  opened  at  the  State  Capi- 
tal, and  a  lavish  expenditure  of  money  begins,  while  the 
people  look  on  with  amazement  and  wonder  where  the 
money  comes  from.  The  local  manipulators,  many  of 
whom  were  parties  to  the  conspiracy  from  the  beginning, 
are  sent  for  and  kept  upon  the  ground  as  a  guaranty  that 
the  various  bargains  made  throughout  the  State,  shall  be 
carried  out.  Then  comes  the  party  caucus,  which  all  must 
attend  and  to  whose  decrees  all  must  submit  or  lose  theii 
party  standing.  Finally  the  majority  of  the  caucus,  which 
is  usually  a  minority  of  the  Legislature,  nominates  the  cor 
poration  candidate  and  the  drunken  brawl  that  has  rendered 
the  State  Capital  disorderly  for  a  fortnight  or  more,  is  at  an 
end  and  the  people  are  betrayed. 


26  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

CONTKOLLING   POWER    OF   THE    SENATE. 

In  Great  Britain  the  Commons  control  the  politics  of  the 
realm.  The  Lords  follow,  and  hence  rarely  originate  a 
measure. 

There  have  been  but  three  instances  of  conflict  between 
;he  two  houses  of  Parliament  for  sixty  years.  In  1860  a 
conflict  arose  concerning  the  abolition  of  the  paper  duty. 
The  lower  house  had  voted  it  and  the  Lords  wished  to 
>bject.  Both  the  Commons  and  the  Ministry  of  Lord 
Palmerston  disputed  the  right  of  the  Lords  to  make  any 
ihange  in  a  bill  relating  to  taxation,  and  the  Lords  were 
rorced  to  yield.  In  1868  and  in  1874  similar  conflicts  con- 
3erning  the  Irish  Church  Bill  and  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
English  bishops,  resulted  in  signal  victories  for  the  Com- 
mons. But  it  is  a  common  thing,  at  every  session  of  our 
Congress,  for  the  Senate  to  strike  out  all  after  the  enacting 
clause  of  bills  relating  to  revenue,  and  insert  an  entirely 
new  bill  of  their  own.  This  course  was  pursued  in  the 
case  of  the  Mills  Tariff  Bill,  in  the  Fiftieth  Congress,  and 
in  the  Forty-ninth  Congress  the  Morrison  Bill  was  rejected 
altogether.  In  vain  did  the  House  plead  for  an  observance 
of  the  Constitution,  which  requires  that  Kevenue  Bills  shall 
originate  in  the  House.  The  Senate  haughtily  persisted  in 
according  to  the  House  the  right  to  simply  originate  the 
formal  title:  "Be  it  enacted,"  but  the  right  to  originate 
the  vital  portions  of  the  bill  they  stubbornly  arrogated  to 
themselves — thus  trampling  under  foot  both  the  Constitu- 
tion and  popular  sentiment  at  one  and  the  same  time. 

Theoretically  the  sovereign  of  Great  Britain  can  with- 
hold assent  from  any  measure  which  may  be  passed  b}'' 
Parliament,  but  since  the  days  when  Queen  Anne  refused 
to  sanction  the  Scotch  Militia  Bill,  in  1707,  the  royal 
approval  has  never  been  withheld. 


THE    SENATE.  )H 

A  vote  in  the  House  of  Commons,  in  opposition  to  the 
policy  of  the  ministry,  hurls  every  minister  from  his  posi- 
tion and  compels  a  reorganization  in  harmony  with  pubKc 
opinion.  In  democratic  America,  strange  to  say,  the 
Senate  is  all  powerful.  To  an  alarming  extent  they  can, 
and  do,  control  both  the  House  and  the  Executive,  through 
the  power  lodged  in  them  to  confirm  Executive  appoint- 
ments, and  in  various  other  ways.  To  illustrate:  The 
present  Senate  has  a  Republican  majority.  During  the 
administration  of  President  Cleveland,  the  writer  knew  of 
instances  where  Democratic  Secretaries  of  the  Treasurj^^ 
and  of  the  Interior,  before  making  appointments  requiring 
confirmation  by  the  Senate,  requested  a  friend  to  consult 
with  prominent  EepubKcan  Senators  and  try  to  ascertain 
whether  the  appointments  would  be  confirmed  if  made. 
This  is  of  frequent  occurrence  in  other  departments  within 
the  knowledge  of  the  writer.  It  is  equivalent  to  giving 
the  Senate,  or  still  worse,  the  Senators  consulted,  the 
power  to  select,  in  addition  to  the  power  to  confirm.  Any- 
one at  all  acquainted  with  the  manner  of  doing  business  in 
the  House  of  Representatives  is  aware  of  the  fact  that 
measures  are  frequently  framed  with  a  view  to  their  accept- 
ability in  the  Senate,  rather  than  with  reference  to  the 
pressing  wants  of  the  public,  even  when  the  two  bodies 
diflEer*  in  politics;  and,  as  to  important  measures,  it  is 
almost  universally  true  when  they  are  in  political  accord. 

"let   us    ALONE." 

The  corporations  and  special  interests  of  every  class 
created  during  the  past  twenty-five  years  by  various  species 
of  class  legislation  and  favoritism,  have  grown  rich  and 
powerful.  They  are  now  pleading  to  be  let  alone.  They 
cry  out,  "You  will  disturb  the  peace,  unsettle  business  and 
violate  our  vested  constitutional  rights."'     The  world  has 


28  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

heard  similar  lamentations  before.  The  same  spirit  haa 
lurked  in  the  pathway  of  progress  and  hissed  its  sinister 
protests  from  behind  the  Constitution  and  from  beneath  the 
very  altars  of  our  holy  religion,  from  the  beginning  until 
now.  The  same  argument  was  urged  against  the  intro- 
duction of  the  gospel  in  the  early  days  of  Christianity. 
Alexander,  the  coppersmith,  found  that  the  new  doctrine 
would  interfere  with  his  sale  of  the  images  of  Diana,  and 
therefore  concluded  the  gospel  should  not  be  tolerated. 
And  the  Good  Book  tells  us  that  the  evil  spirit  that  was 
caught  torturing  a  poor  unfortunate  victim,  upon  beholding 
the  Savior  besought  him  to  depart  and  not  to  interfere 
with  his  vested  rights — not  to  cast  him  out  before  his 
time.  This  is  perhaps  the  earliest  enunciation  of  the 
salutary  doctrine  of  vested  rights.  And  it  is  a  noteworthy 
fact  that  most  of  those  who  have  occasion  to  plead  it  in 
modern  times  are  engaged  in  the  business  of  torturing 
somebody.  But  the  preaching  of  the  gospel  did  not  cease, 
the  sale  of  images  disappeared  and  the  Devil  had  to  go. 
This  old  plea  is  now  urged,  however,  in  behalf  of  corpora- 
tion usurpers  and  tyrants.  They  have  nothing  to  gain  by 
change.  On  the  contrary  everything  to  lose.  Their  Juff- 
gernaut  must  move  and  the  car  of  progress  stand 
still.  They  would  not  have  the  situation  otherwise  than  it 
is,  and  as  the  most  effectual  method  of  enforcing  this 
policy  they  have  quietly  filled  the  Senate  with  their  friends. 
The  punishment  meted  out  by  the  corporations  to  Judge 
Thurman,  of  Ohio,  for  the  faithful  discharge  of  his  duty 
concerning  the  Pacific  railroads,  while  a  member  of  the 
Senate,  and  the  defeat  of  General  Van  Wyck,  in  Nebraska, 
after  the  people  had  expressed  a  desire  for  his  re-election 
— these  and  a  score  of  similar  instances— attest  only  too 
accurately  the  extent  and  the  deadly  character  of  corporate 
influence  in  this  body. 


THE    SENATE.  i  29 

The  Senate,  as  we  have  seen,  was  incorporated  into  oui 
legislative  system  as  a  check  upon  the  rashness  and  appre- 
hended extremes  of  the  popular  branch  of  Congress.  Bui 
it  was  not  contemplated,  even  by  Dickinson  and  Hamilton, 
that  it  should  become  the  stronghold  of  monopoly,  noi 
that  it  should  hedge  up  the  way  to  all  reform  and  make 
impossible  the  peaceful  overthrow  of  conceded  abuses.  In 
fact  no  tendency  in  this  direction  was  observable  until 
within  the  past  thirty  years.  But  of  late  this  body  has 
come  to  represent  both  the  evil  and  the  inertia  of  govern- 
ment. When  you  visit  the  Senate  chamber  you  are  at  once 
reminded  of  antiquity.  You  feel  that  you  are  not  far 
removed  from  that  period  when  the  changeless  laws  of  the 
Medes  and  Persians  were  in  force.  If,  without  diverting 
your  attention,  you  could  be  suddenly  transported  to  an 
Egyptian  charnel-house  filled  with  mummies,  you  would  be 
likely  to  mistake  it  for  a  Senate  cloak- room.  The  very 
foot-falls  of  the  Senators,  as  they  walk  across  the  tessellated 
floors  sound  like  a  constant  iteration  of  statu  quo!  statu 
quo!  statu  quo! 

THE   SILVER  EPISODE. 

Kecent  occurances  have  caused  many  persons  to  doubt 
the  correctness  of  public  sentiment  concerning  the  Senate. 
The  whole  country  was  taken  aback  and  the  majority  of  the 
people  agreeably  surprised,  during  the  session  of  the  Fifty- 
first  Congress,  by  the  passage  through  the  Senate  of  a  bill 
providing  for  the  free  coinage  of  silver.  It  was  strangled 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  and  the  people  were 
amazed.  Many  thought  that  this  called  at  least  for  a  sus- 
pension, if  not  for  a  revision  of  public  sentiment  concerning 
the  upper  house  of  our  Congress.  A  moment's  reflection 
will  explain  it  all.     The  Republican  majority  in  the  Senate 


30  A   CALL    TO    ACTION. 

is  not  large.  There  are  a  few  Republican  Senators  like  Mr. 
Jones  and  Mr.  Stewart  of  Nevada,  Mr.  Teller  of  Colorado, 
and  Mr.  Stanford  of  California,  who  really  favor  free  coin- 
age; and  so  of  a  few  Democratic  Senators,  like  Mr.  Daniela 
of  Virginia,  Mr.  Yorhees,  of  Indiana,  and  others.  But  the 
great  body  of  Democratic  Senators  voted  for  free  coinage 
with  no  higher  motive  than  to  embarrass  the  Republican 
speaker,  the  leaders  of  the  House  and  the  administration, 
who  were  known  to  be  hostile  to  such  legislation.  For  ex- 
ample. Senator  Carlisle  voted  for  the  bill  in  the  Senate, 
and  yet  while  he  was  Speaker  of  the  House  in  the  preced- 
ing Congress,  he  was  known  to  be  uncompromisingly  hostile 
to  the  free  coinage  of  silver;  and  although  he  always 
appointed  Mr.  Bland  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Coin- 
age, Weights  and  Measures,  he  invariably  filled  the  com- 
mittee with  anti-silver  men,  and  thus  made  legislation  in  that 
direction  impossible.  No,  with  a  sort  of  feline  cruelty  they 
were  only  playing  with  the  free  coinage  mouse.  It  could 
be  allowed  to  escape  from  the  Senate,  but  they  felt  certain 
that  the  presiding  officer  at  the  other  end  of  the  Capitol 
could  be  relied  upon  to  slay  it  at  first  sight.  And  if,  unhap- 
pily, it  should  run  successfully  the  gauntlet  of  the  House, 
there  was  a  trap  at  ithe  other  end  of  the  avenue  already 
waiting  for  the  intruder,  and  it  could  be  relied  upon  to  do 
Its  work  —  an  Executive  veto  was  in  waiting.  Had  there 
been  the  slightest  probability,  or  even  possibility,  that  the 
bill  would  become  a  law  it  could  never  have  been  reported 
for  consideration.  This  view  of  the  silver  episode  is  in 
strict  accord  with  the  history  of  the  Senate  for  fully  a 
quarter  of  acentury,  and  it  is  in  harmony  with  the  personal 
biography  of  a  large  majority  of  its  members  regardless  of 
party. 


THE   SENATE.  31 

INFLUENCE    OF    WEALTHY     SENATORS. 

The  opinion  expressed  by  Mr.  Dickinson,  in  the  constitu- 
tional convention,  that  men  of  wealth  would  be  more  likely 
to  be  selected  for  the  Senate  by  State  legislatures  than  by 
the  people  themselves,  has  been  justified  by  the  experience 
of  the  last  thirty  years.  A  large  number  of  Senators  are 
men  of  great  wealth.  Many  of  them  have  been  the  bene- 
ficiaries of  class  legislation  which  of  late  years  has  marked 
our  history,  and  have  acquired  fabulous  fortunes.  A  few 
have  grown  rich  by  superior  business  energy  and  enter- 
prise. A  small  number  inherited  their  riches.  But  with- 
out regard  to  the  methods  by  which  their  wealth  was 
acquired,  the  over-shadowing  influence  of  the  wealth^' 
members  over  their  less  fortunate  colleagues  is  a  fact 
beyond  dispute.  It  is  still  true  that  knowledge  is  power, 
but  its  processes  are  often  tedious  and  its  rewards  tardy. 
Accumulated  wealth  is  also  power  and  it  can  exercise  its 
strength  at  a  moment's  notice  and  often,  for  the  time  being, 
drives  knowledge  ignominiously  from  the  field.  But 
the  latter  generally  returns  re-enforced  by  experience. 
Ready  cash  is  the  storage  battery  of  social  and  business 
influence.  When  directed  in  legitimate  channels  its  ener- 
gies are  helpful  and  safe;  but  it  also  possesses  a  death- 
deaHng  current  and  the  world  is  full  of  its  victims.  Under 
our  present  method  of  electing  Senators  it  is  an  easy  matter 
for  an  unscrupulous  man  of  wealth  to  secure  the  position. 
When  elected  it  is  extremelj^  difficult  to  displace  him. 
Length  of  service  affords  opportunity  to  become  established 
socially  and  official^-  When  a  new  Senator  makes  his 
appearance  he  is  duly  estimated  and  every  courtesy  and 
clever  attention  is  extended  to  him.  If  the  new  member  is  a 
man  of  wealth,  his  status  is  fixed  at  once.  If  he  is  poor,  it 
will  not  be  long,  unless  he  be  unusually  alert,  before  he  is 


32  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

likely  to  find  himself  under  some  obligation  to  his  wealthy 
colleagues  which  tends  to  greatly  circumscribe  his  power 
and  limit  his  independence.  If  wealthy  Senators  were  few 
in  number  they  would  still  wield  a  dangerous  influence  over 
legislation.  But  when  you  add  numbers  to  wealth,  the 
danger  is  frightfully  increased.  At  least  a  score  of  our 
Senators  are  millionaires.  Another  score  are  worth  each  a 
hundred  thousand  or  more.  Half  a  score  are  men  of  very 
considerable  wealth.  The  remainder  range  from  twenty 
thousand  down  to  near  the  value  of  their  salaries. 

COKPOEATION    ATTOKNEYS   IN   THE    SENATE. 

The  immense  volume  of    legislation  relating  to   land 
grants,  internal  and  external  commerce,  railway  subsidies, 
excise  taxes  and  import  duties,  contracts  for  carrying  the 
mails,  purchase  of  Indian  lands,  private  land  grants,  steam 
ship  subsidies,  and  a  thousand  and  one  other  matters,  have 
given  rise  to  a  flood  tide  of  litigation  unequaled  in  any  age 
or  clime.     A  large  number  of  the  contentions  rising  out  of 
this  legislation  involve  the  construction  of  acts  of  congress, 
and  not  unfrequently  their  constitutionality  also.     In  many 
cases  the  collection  and  proper    disbursement  of  public 
moneys  are  called  directly  in  question,  and  as  long  as  Sen- 
ators stand  in  the  relation  of  law  makers  to  the  public,  a 
proper  appreciation  of  their  high  ofiice  should  restrain  them 
from   appearing  as  attorneys,  either  for  corporations  or 
individuals,  in  cases  involving  the  proper  interpretation  of 
statutes  which  they  themselves  have  made.     The  practice, 
however,  is  just  the  reverse.     When  the  Supreme  Court  is  in 
session  it  is  a  common  thing  to  see  the  leading  Senators 
leave  their  seats  and  pass  into  the  court  room,  there  to  act 
as  counsel  for  the  leading  corporations.     Many  Senators 
are  annually  retained  by  corporations  and  other  moneyed 
interests.     Such  things  are  incompatible  with  the  faithful 


THE    SENATE.  33 

discharge  of  public  duty.  It  is  true  that  the  salaries  and 
lawful  emoluments  of  Senatorial  life  are  meagre  and  unin- 
viting; but  no  one  is  compelled  to  accept  them.  When 
once  accepted,  however,  the  privileges  of  the  lawyer  should 
cease  just  where  the  duties  of  the  public  servant  begin. 
At  this  point  his  relation  to  the  public  changes  entirely. 
The  Nation  then  becomes  his  client  and  he  should  appear  in 
his  place  and  plead  the  cause  of  the  whole  people  without 
mental  reservation  or  self-evasion.  No  other  rule  is  com- 
patible with  public  duty  or  private  honor.  Public  senti- 
ment which  will  knowingly  tolerate  the  infraction  of  such 
rule  is  utterly  demoralized,  and  law  makers  who  insist  upon 
such  indulgence  should  at  once  be  permitted  to  return  to 
the  practice  of  their  profession  and  to  private  life. 

THE   DECLmE   OF  THE   SENATE. 

There  is  not  a  single  great  leader  in  the  Senate  of  to-day, 
not  one  who  is  abreast  of  the  times,  or  who  can  be  truth- 
fully said  to  be  the  exponent  of  American  civilization  or 
the  active  champion  of  the  reforms  made  necessary  by  the 
growth  and  changed  relations  of  a  century,  and  which 
are  now  struggling  for  recognition.  John  P.  Jones,  of 
Nevada,  is  the  ripest  philosopher,  and  by  all  odds  the 
greatest  thinker  now  in  the  Senate.  We  doubt,  indeed, 
whether  he  has  ever  had  an  equal,  along  the  line  of  eco- 
nomic thought,  in  all  the  history  of  that  distinguished 
bodj .  The  versatility  and  scope  of  his  genius  make  him  a 
matchless  teacher  and  he  will  forever  rank  as  one  of  the 
great  men  of  his  day.  He  is  full  of  forceful,  original 
thought,  and  expresses  himself  in  proverbs,  but  he  lacks 
that  singleness  of  purpose  which  marks  the  great  leader. 
He  has,  in  his  mental  armory,  sufficient  munitions  of  war 
to  equip  a  whole  legion,  but  he  waits  for  others  to  recruit 
the  forces  and  lead  them  to  battle.     There  are  other  Sen- 


34  A   CALL   TO    AOTIOX. 

ators  who  have  a  clear  conception  of  duty,  but  this  con- 
ception never  ripens  into  action.  They  are  stifled  by  their 
surroundings  and  dwarfed  by  their  parties.  One  and  all, 
they  stand  dumb  and  aimless  in  the  presence  of  the  mighty 
problems  of  the  age.  The  situation  reminds  one  of  the 
era  in  the  histor}'  of  our  planet  mentioned  in  the  book  of 
Genesis,  when  it  is  said:  "There  was  not  a  man  to  till  the 
ground." 

This  august  body  is  literally  filled  with  splendid  speci- 
mens of  a  by-gone  epoch — men  whose  only  mission  is  to 
preserve  the  old  order  of  things — to  guard  the  embalmed 
corpse  of  the  past  from  the  touch  of  the  profane  reformer. 
They  are  the  lineal  descendents  of  the  fellows  who  skulked 
in  the  camp  of  Israel  when  Joshua  insisted  on  crossing 
the  Jordan  into  the  promised  land.  They  are  as  much  out 
of  place  in  this  pulsating  age  of  reform  as  a  mastodon  or  a 
megatherium  would  be  among  a  herd  of  our  modern  well 
bred  domestic  animals.  They  are  fit  only  to  adorn 
museums  and  musty  cabinets.  If  their  commissions  could 
be  recalled  to-day  and  the  question  of  their  return  referred 
to  an  open  vote  of  their  constituents,  there  is  not  one  in  ten 
who  would  stand  a  ghost  of  a  show  for  re-election.  They 
are  not  in  touch  with  the  people.  Their  strength  lies  in 
their  entrenched  position — not  in  their  achierements  nor 
the  principles  which  they  represent.  If  dislodged,  they 
would  be  powerless  to  make  another  stand.  We,  of  course, 
do  not  include  in  this  criticism  the  two  or  three  prophets 
of  the  new  order  of  things,  who  have  but  recently  been 
commissioned  to  go  unto  Ninevah,  that  great  cit}^,  and  to 
preach  unto  it  the  preaching  whereunto  they  have  been 
called.  It  will  be  time  enough  to  speak  of  them  when 
they  shall  have  had  opportunity  to  obey  those  who  sent 
them. 


THE    SENATE.  35 

Every  great  movement  and  struggle  of  the  race  develops 
its  own  leaders,  who  are  forced  to  assault  fortified  positions 
and  fight  against  great  odds.  Some  positions  have  to  be 
carried  by  storm,  while  others  can  only  be  taken  by  regular 
approaches  which  sorely  try  the  endurance  and  resourcea 
of  the  besieging  columns.  Such  were  the  characteristics  of 
the  great  struggle  of  the  60's.  Their  storming  parties  were 
hurled  forward  with  dash  and  power,  and  their  sieges  were 
stubborn  and  successful.  To  change  the  figure,  the  pion- 
eers in  the  movement  doubtless  had  a  clear  vision  of  the 
land  to  be  ultimately  possessed,  but  they  quickly  passed 
away  and  were  succeeded  by  an  inferior  order  of  leaders 
who  felt  that  they  had  done  their  whole  duty  when  they 
had  driven  out  the  wild  beasts,  cleared  away  the  forest  and 
prepared  the  ground  for  the  reception  of  good  seed.  They 
then  rested  upon  their  laurels  and  allowed  the  enemy  to  sow 
the  field  with  tares.  The  seed  has  grown,  the  harvest  has 
ripened,  and  the  reapers  are  under  orders  to  burn  the  tares. 

The  moral,  intellectual  and  political  leaders  during  the 
twenty  years  immediately  following  the  war,  with  the  sin- 
gle exception  of  Wendell  Phillips,  failed  to  comprehend 
the  problems  which  confronted  them.  They  stopped  with 
the  overthrow  of  the  outward  form  of  slavery.  Through 
the  strength  and  suffering  of  the  great  army  of  the  people 
they  succeeded  in  breaking  the  chains  of  chattel  slavery  and 
prepared  the  way  for  the  complete  triumph  of  man  over 
those  who  lived  by  the  enslavement  of  labor.  All  that  was 
necessary  was  one  more  forward  movement  of  the  column, 
and  the  victory  would  have  been  complete.  But  they  failed 
to  make  it  and  surrendered  to  a  handful  of  task  masters  of 
another  type,  whose  triumphs  in  the  slave  trade  have  never, 
in  all  the  ages,  been  limited  b}^  distinctions  of  race  or  com- 
plexions of  skin.  This  class  of  slave  drivers  have  never 
yet  been  routed  or  permanently  crippled.     They  have  plied 


36  A.    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

their  cruel  vocation  among  all  the  families  of  men.  To 
overthrow  them  is  the  grand  work  of  the  new  crusade.  Con- 
federated labor  has  proclaimed  the  new  emancipation.  Now 
let  the  great  army  of  toilers  move  on  the  enemy's  works 
and  enforce  the  decree. 

A   CHARITABLE   RULE     AND    HOW   IT  WORKS. 

The  Constitution  makes  each  house  of  Congress  the  judge 
of  the  qualification  and  election  of  its  own  members.  They 
can,  and  do,  prescribe  their  own  codes  of  procedure,  and 
the  rules  which  shall  govern  the  production  of  testimony  in 
proceedings  looking  to  the  expulsion  of  a  member.  If  a 
Senator  is  charged  with  the  corrupt  use  of  money  in  secur- 
ing his  election,  it  is  quite  natural  that  the  other  Senators, 
many  of  whom  are  under  the  same  cloud,  should  at  least  be 
disposed  to  take  a  very  charitable  view  of  the  rules  which 
should  govern  the  investigation  and  their  own  final  action. 
There  is  a  deep-seated  conviction  among  the  people,  which 
in  some  way  is  strengthened  by  each  recurring  Senatorial 
election,  that  such  positions  are  secured  by  open  and  shame- 
less bribery  and  the  criminal  expenditure  of  money.  In- 
deed, it  has  become  of  late  the  custom  to  inform  the  public, 
in  a  general  way,  that  it  cost  the  successful  candidate  from 
$50,000  to  perhaps  four  times  that  sum  to  secure  his  elec- 
tion, and  that  the  rival  and  defeated  candidate — well,  he 
was  a  little  too  coarse  to  pass  through  the  Hamiltonian 
filter.  His  purse  gave  out,  and  the  glittering  prize  eluded 
his  grasp. 

In  the  month  of  January,  1884,  Henry  B.  Payne  was  elected 
to  the  Senate  by  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  Ohio,  having 
been  nominated  previously  by  the  Democratic  caucus,  in 
which  he  received  45  votes,  Durbin  Ward  17,  George  H. 
Pendleton  15.     The  result  was  unexpected,  as  it  was  sup- 


THE    SENATE.  37 

posed  the  sitting  member,  the  Hon.  George  H.  Pendleton, 
and  Mr.  Durbin  Ward,  had  secured  the  pledges  of  a  safe 
majority  of  those  who  would  constitute  the  caucus  of  the 
dominant  party,  and  the  chances  were  largely  in  favor  of 
Mr.  Pendleton  as  against  the  field.  No  one  had  been  so 
rash  as  to  anticipate  the  election  of  Mr.  Payne,  nor  had  his 
candidacy  even  been  mentioned  prior  to  the  election  of  the 
Legislature.  The  result  was  so  unexpected  that  the  large 
majority  of  the  Democratic  newspapers  of  the  State  openly 
charged  that  Payne's  election  had  been  secured  by  the  cor- 
rupt use  of  money.  Judge  McKemy,  of  Butler  county; 
Judge  Coryell,  of  Adams;  Allen  G.  Thurman  and  Gen. 
A.  J.  Warner,  Democrats  of  national  fame,  all  charged  that 
the  election  of  Payne  was  the  result  of  corrupt  purchase. 
Finally,  the  succeeding  General  Assembly  of  the  State  of 
Ohio,  Republican  in  politics,  proceeded  to  investigate  the 
case.  A  large  amount  of  very  damaging  and  startling  tes- 
timony was  taken  and  reported  by  the  committee.  The 
Ohio  Senate  and  House,  each  acting  separately,  passed  the 
following  resolutions,  and  transmitted  them,  along  with  the 
testimony  adduced,  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States: 

Whereas,  by  common  report,  suggested  and  corrobo- 
rated by  the  public  press  of  the  State  without  respect  to 
party,  and  by  a  recent  investigation  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, the  title  of  Henry  B.  Payne  to  a  seat  in  the 
United  States  Senate  is  vitiated  by  corrupt  practices  and 
the  corrupt  use  of  money  in  procuring  his  election;  and 

Whereas,  it  is  deemed  expedient,  in  order  to  secure  a 
thorough  investigation  of  his  said  election  as  Senator  by 
the  United  States  Senate,  that  the  belief  of  the  General 
Assembly  in  this  regard  be  formulated  in  a  specific  charge: 
Therefore,  be  it 

Jiesolvedy'That  in  the  opinion  of  the  General  Assembly, 
and  it  so  charges,  the  election  of  Henry  B.  Payne  as  Sen- 
ator of  the  United  States  from  Ohio,  in  January,  1884,  was 


38  A    CALL    TO    ACTION. 

procured  and  brought  about  by  the  corrupt  use  of  money, 
paid  to  or  for  the  benefit  of  divers  and  sundry  members  of 
the  Sixty-sixth  General  Assembly  of  Ohio,  and  by  other 
corrupt  means  and  practices,  a  more  particular  statement 
of  which  cannot  now  be  given. 

Resolved^  That  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  be,  and 
the  same  is  hereb}^,  requested  to  make  a  full  investigation 
into  the  facts  of  such  election"  so  far  as  pertains  to  corrupt 
means  used  in  that  behalf. 

Resolved^  That  the  governor  be,  and  is  hereby,  requested 
to  forward  a  copy  thereof  to  the  president  of  the  Senate  ot 
the  United  States. 

I  hereby  certify  that  the  foregoing  is  a  true  and  correct 
copy  of  said  resolution,  as  the  same  appears  upon  the  Senate 
journal  of  Friday,  May  14,  1886,  after  being  changed  from 
a  "joint"  to  a  "Senate"  resolution,  and  adopted  by  the 
Senate.  C.  N.  Yallandigham, 

Clerk  Ohio  Senate. 

[H.  R.  No.  89.— Mr.  Brumbaek.] 

Whereas,  it  is  the  precedent  in  the  United  States  Senate 
that  charges  of  briber}'"  must  be  directly  made  to  warrant  a 
committee  of  said  body  in  proceeding  to  investigate  the 
title  of  any  United  States  Senator  to  his  seat:   Therefore, 

Be  it  resolved  hy  the  Ho^ise  of  Representatives  of  Ohio., 
That  in  the  investigation  made  under  House  resolution  No. 
28,  ample  testimony  was  adduced  to  warrant  the  belief  that 
the  charges  heretofore  made  by  the  Democratic  press  of 
Ohio  are  true,  to-wit:  That  the  seat  of  Henry  B.  Payne,  in 
the  United  States  Senate,  was  purchased  by  the  corrupt  use 
of  money ;  and 

Further  resolved.,  That  the  honor  of  Ohio  demands,  and 
this  House  of  Representatives  requests,  that  the  said  title  of 
Henry  B.  Pa3me  to  a  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate  be 
rigidly  investigated  by  said  Senate;  and 

Further  resolved.,  That  the  governor  of  Ohio  be  requested 
to  forward  a  copy  of  this  resolution  to  the  president  of  the 
United  States  Senate. 

In  House  of  Representatives. 

Adopted  May  18,  1886. 

Attest:  David  Lanning,  Clet^h. 


THT':    SENATE.  39 

In  addition  to  tliis  charge  of  corruption  and  request  for 
investigation  by  the  Legislature  of  Ohio,  ten  of  the  Repre- 
sentatives in  Congress  from  that  State,  headed  by  the  Hon. 
Benjamin  Butterworth  and  the  Hon.  Mr.  Little,  also  made 
formal  charges  and  requested  investigation.  The  names  of 
witnesses,  and  a  fearful  syuopsis  of  what  could  be  proven 
by  them,  accompanied  the  request.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  Senate  was  the  only  body  then  having  com- 
plete jurisdiction  over  both  the  accused  and  the  subject 
matter  under  controversy.  The  moment  that  the  certificate 
of  election  was  delivered  to  Mr.  Payne,  the  Senate  became 
the  sole  judge  of  his  qualification  and  election. 

April  27th,  1886,  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  referred 
these  resolutions,  together  with  the  accompanying  testi- 
mony, to  the  Committee  on  Privileges  and  Elections,  com- 
posed of  nine  members,  five  Republicans  and  four  Demo- 
crats, to- wit :  AVm.  M.  Evarts,  H.  M.  Teller,  John  A.  Logan, 
Geo.  F.  Hoar,  Wm.  P.  Frye,  James  L.  Pugh,  Eli  Saulsbury, 
Z.  B.  Yance  and  J.  B.  Eustis. 

In  addition  to  the  mass  of  printed  testimony  referred  to 
this  committee,  Mr.  Butterworth  and  Mr.  Little  appeared 
in  person  and  gave  the  names  of  additional  witnesses  by 
whom  the  charges  could  be  sustained,  if  the  nonimittee 
wished  to  be  informed. 

The  evidence  taken  before  the  committee  of  the  Ohio 
Legislature,  and  submitted  to  the  Senate  committee,  estab- 
lished by  creditable  witnesses  the  following  facts : 

One  member,  after  the  caucus,  deposited  $2,500  in  two 
amounts,  and  being  charged  that  it  was  the  price  of  his 
vote,  did  not  persist  in  denial.  Another  who  changed  to 
Payne,  just  before  the  caucus,  stated  to  a  colleague  that  he 
was  oft'ered  $5,000  to  vote  for  Payne,  and  intended  to  accept 
it,  and  tried  to  induce  his  colleague  to  do  the  same.  That 
this  person's  wife,  just  afterward,   deposited  $2,500  in  a 


40  A   CALL    TO    ACTION, 

Toledo  bank,  took  a  certificate  therefor,  which  she  trans- 
ferred to  her  husband. 

Another,  who  is  claimed  to  have  changed  suddenly  from 
Pendleton  to  Payne,  is  found  making,  soon  after,  expendi- 
tures amounting  to  $1,600  with  his  own  money  on  land,  the 
title  to  which  was  taken  in  the  name  of  his  father,  who  paid 
$2,000  for  it  about  the  same  time.  The  father  and  son  lived 
together  in  the  same  house.  The  son  testified  that  he  did 
not  know  where  the  father  got  the  money  to  pay  the  $2,000. 
The  father  refused  to  state  where  he  got  his  $2,000,  and 
said  he  did  not  know  where  the  son  got  the  $1,600,  and  if 
he  did  he  would  not  tell.  The  same  member  also  made 
other  large  payments  of  money  about  the  same  time. 

Another,  who  had  to  borrow  money  when  he  went  to 
Columbus,  and  changed  suddenly  from  Pendleton  to  Payne, 
was  shown  just  after  the  election  to  be  in  possession  of 
money  to  purchase  property,  refurnish  his  house,  etc.  He 
was  denounced  by  another  member  as  having  sold  his  vote. 
He  turned  exceedingly  sick,  made  no  denial,  and  was  taken 
away.  Two  others,  elected  as  anti-monopolists,  became 
supporters  of  Mr.  Payne,  and  were  heard  discussing  to- 
gether the  amount  of  money  each  had  received.  Another, 
who  had  before  bee  a  for  another  candidate,  but  voted  for 
Mr.  Payne,  received  from  Oliver  B.  Payne  $3,500,  which 
he  said  was  a  loan.  Another,  according  to  affidavits  pro- 
duced by  Mr.  Little,  was  declared  by  a  fellow  member  to 
be  claiming  $3, 500  for  his  vote.  Another,  who  had  been 
very  earnest  in  support  of  Pendleton,  visited  the  room  of 
Mr.  Payne's  managers,  where  the  large  sums  of  money  are 
alleged  to  have  been  seen,  and  immediately  afterward  voted 
for  Mr.  Payne. 

Sixty-five  thousand  dollars  was  taken  to  Columbus,  as 
stated  to  a  witness  by  D.  R.  Paige,  Payne's  friend.  The 
room  of  Paige,  immediately  preceding  the  caucus,  presented 


THE   SENATE.  41 

the  appearance  of  a  hanh^  as  stated  by  Governor  Mueller  and 
Paige's  friend.  There  were,  in  Paige's  private  room,  coin 
sacks,  empty  sacks,  and  cases  for  greenbacks,  scattered 
about  on  the  floor  and  table,  according  to  Paige's  friend, 
who  called  to  see  him,  and  a  few  moments  afterwards  told 
Colonel  Russell,  saying,  also,  that  Pa3me  would  get  there. 
It  appears  that  the  conversions  from  Pendleton  to  Pajnoe 
were  largely  the  result  of  a  visit  to  the  Paige  rooms. 

It  appears,  also,  that  those  who  had  been  pledged  to 
Pendleton  were  immediately  thereafter  flush,  could  dis- 
charge debts,  lift  mortgages,  and  buy  property  for  cash. 

With  these  facts  before  them,  the  committee  reported 
that  there  was  not  suflScient  evidence  to  justify  the  Senate 
in  further  investigation  !  The  following  is  taken  from  the 
majority  report : 

Your  committee  are  of  the  opinion  that,  to  deprive  a 
sitting  member  of  the  Senate  of  his  seat,  the  Senate  must 
be  satisfied  by  legal  evidence  that  he  was  personally  guilty 
of  bribery,  or  that  he  was  joersonally  connected  with  the 
bribery  or  the  corrupt  use  of  money  to  secure  his  election, 
or  that  he  had  personal  knowledge  of  such  corrupt  use  of 
money,  and  personally  sanctioned  or  encouraged  such  use 
thereof  to  insure  his  election.  The  legal  effect  of  such 
personal  guilt  of  the  sitting  member  on  his  election  your 
committee  do  not  decide,  some  members  being  of  opinion 
that  whether  it  extended  to  the  corruption  of  the  majorit}^ 
of  the  nominating  caucus  or  the  majority  of  the  Legislature 
of  the  State  which  secured  his  election  is  immaterial.  The 
trial  of  the  validity  of  his  title  or  on  the  question  of  his 
expulsion,  as  the  single  personal  act  of  bribery  or  other 
corrupt  use  of  money  by  the  sitting  member,  as  stated,  to 
procure  his  election,  would  be  sutiicient,  in  the  opinion  of 
some  of  us,  to  invalidate  the  title  he  claims  to  have 
acquired,  and  would  justify  his  expulsion  from  the  Senate. 

Your  committee  are  also  of  the  opinion  that,  if  the  evi- 
dence failti  to  show  that  the  sitting  member  was  guilty  of 
the  bribery  of  any  member  of  the  caucus  or  the  Legislature, 


42  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

or  had  any  personal  knowledge  or  agency  in  the  bribery, 
or  the  corrupt  use  of  money  to  secure  his  election,  then  the 
Senate  must  be  satisfied  by  legal  evidence  that  a  suflicienl 
number  of  the  members  of  the  Legislature  were  bribed  by 
the  friends  of  the  sitting  member  to  secure  the  votes  oi 
enough  members  of  the  Legislature  to  insure  his  election, 
and  that  without  the  votes  thus  corruptly  obtained  the  sit- 
ting member  could  not  have  been  declared  elected. 

^  *  -ii  ^  ^  -A  ^ 

That  Henry  B.  Payne  has  not  been  charged  with  having 
anything  to  do  personally,  or  with  having  any  personal 
knowledge  of,  connection  with,  or  participation  in  any  act, 
or  anything  that  may  have  been  done,  or  charged  as  having 
been  done,  that  was  wrong,  criminal,  immoral,  or  repre- 
hensible in  his  election;  that  no  member  of  your  commit- 
tee, and  no  witness,  Representative,  or  other  person,  has 
expressed  the  opinion  or  intimated  any  belief  or  suspicion 
that  Henry  B.  Payne  is  or  was  connected  in  the  remotest 
degree,  by  act  or  knowledge,  with  anything  that  was  or 
may  have  been  wrong,  or  criminal,  or  immoral  in  his 
election, 

A  majority  of  your  committee  report  that  on  the  whole 
case,  as  presented  to  them,  they  recommend  that  the  Senate 
make  no  further  investigation  of  the  charge  involving  the 
right  of  Henry  B.  Payne  to  his  seat. 

Seven  of  the  committee,  four  Democrats  and  three  Repub- 
licans, concurred  in  this  report.  Senators  Hoar  and  Frye 
made  a  minority  report,  in  which  they  sa}^ : 

The  Ohio  Senate  of  1883-'S4  contained  33  members.  Of 
these  22  were  Democrats  and  11  Republicans.  The  House 
contained  105  members,  of  which  60  were  Democrats  and 
i5  Republicans.  The  members  entitled  to  vote  on  joint 
ballot  were  138  in  all,  82  Democrats,  and  50  Republicans. 
Eighty-two  persons  were  entitled  to  vote  in  the  Democratic 
caucus,  of  whom  42  were  a  majority.  Seventy-nine  per- 
sons actually  attended  that  caucus,  of  which  40  were  a  ma- 
jority. Is  there  fair  reason  for  instituting  an  inquiry 
whether  the  result  of  the  election  was  procured  by  bribery? 
We  think  that  the  character  of   the  persons  making  the 


THE    SENATE.  43 

charge  is  of  itself  sufficient  to  require  the  Senate  to  listen 
to  it.  But  they  produce  a  great  body  of  evidence,  all 
pointing  in  the  same  direction. 

We  are  not  now  to  consider  whether  the  case  is  proved, 
or  even  whether  there  be  a  ^;»r/«i«  facie  case.  There  has 
as  yet  been  no  evidence  laid  before  us  addressed  to  either 
of  these  considerations.  That  cannot  be  done  without  the 
issue  of  process  for  the  attendance  of  witnesses.  Messrs. 
Little  and  Butterworth  now  offer,  on  their  personal  respon- 
sibility, to  establish  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Senate,  largely 
by  witnesses  who  were  not  within  the  reach  of  the  Ohio 
committee,  and  partly  by  evidence  which  strengthens,  sup- 
plements and  confirms  that  which  was  before  that  commit- 
tee, the  following  among  other  propositions: 

First.  Tliat  of  the  Democratic  members  elected  to  the 
Sixty-sixth  General  Assembly  more  than  three-fourths  were 
positively  pledged  to  Mr.  Pendleton  and  General  Ward, 
and  more  than  a  majority  pledged  to  Mr.  Pendleton.  This 
they  offer  to  prove  by  Mr.  Pendletom  himself,  by  Col.  W. 
A.  Taylor,  and  others. 

Second.  That  in  these  pledges  these  members  repre- 
sented the  opinion  and  desire  of  their  constituents. 

Third.  That  Mr.  Payne  was  nowhere  spoken  of  or 
known  as  a  candidate  during  the  popular  election  or  until 
a  very  short  time  before  the  appointment  of  Senator. 

Fourth.  That  just  before  the  legislative  caucus,  where 
the  nomination  was  made,  which  was  one  week  before  the 
election,  large  sums  of  money  were  placed  by  Mr.  Payne's 
son,  and  other  near  friends  of  his,  at  the  control  of  the 
active  managers  of  his  canvass  in  Columbus.  This  they 
allege  can  be  shown  b}'  the  books  of  one  or  more  banks. 

Fifth.  Mr.  Payne's  near  friends  declare  that  his 
election  has  cost  very  large  sums. 

A  gentleman  whose  name  is  offered  to  be  given  will 
testify  that  David  K.  Paige  declared  to  him  that  he  had 
handled  $65,000. 

Oliver  B.  Paine  stated  to  the  same  person  that  it  had 
cost  him  $100,000  to  elect  his  father. 

Sixth.  That  the  members  of  the  Legislature  whc 
changed  from  Pendleton  to  Payne,  did  so  after  secret  and 


44r  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

confidential  interviews  with  the  agents  who  had  the  dis- 
bursement of  these  moneys. 

Seventh.  That  members  of  the  Legislature  who  sc 
suddenly  changed  their  attitude  can  be  proved  to  have,  at 
about  the  time  of  the  change,  acquired  large  sums  of 
money,  of  which  they  give  no  satisfactory  account. 

Eighth.  Bespectable  Ohio  Democrats  aflarm  that  just 
before  the  caucus  the  room  of  Mr.  Payne's  manager,  Mr. 
Paige,  "was  like  a  banking  house,"  the  "evidence  of  large 
sums  of  money  was  abundant  and  conclusive,"  that  Paige's 
clerk  declared  in  the  presence  of  a  gentleman  of  integrity 
that  "he  had  never  seen  so  much  money  handled  in 
his  life." 

Ninth.  That  the  public  belief  that  the  choice  of  Senator 
was  procured  by  the  corrupt  use  of  money  prevails  almost 
universally  in  Ohio  among  persons  of  both  parties,  which 
finds  very  general  expression  in  the  press. 

Tenth.  That  there  is  specific  proof  leading  with  great 
force  to  the  conclusion  that  each  of  ten  members  will  be 
shown  to  have  changed  their  votes  corruptly,  and  thereby 
that  the  result  was  changed. 

The  Senate  has  also  recently  referred  to  the  committee 
certain  resolutions  adopted  b\  a  convention  of  the  Repub- 
lican editors  of  Ohio,  held  at  Columbus,  July  8,  1886, 
praying  the  Senate  to  investigate  these  charges.  The 
newspaper  reports  of  the  convention  show  that  the  Gover- 
nor of  the  State  was  present  at  the  convention,  and 
declared  his  concurrence  in  said  prayer.  There  have  also 
been  communicated  to  us  extracts  from  the  Democratic 
newspapers  of  Ohio,  showing  that  a  majority  of  those 
papers  have  declared  their  opinion  that  the  election  was 
procured  by  corruption.  Copies  of  these  extracts  are 
appended. 

What  is  the  effect  upon  an  election  of  Senator  by  bribery 
of  voters  in  a  caucus  of  Legislators  who  are  to  make  the 
choice,  is  a  question  upon  which  we  prefer  not  to  form  an 
opinion  until  the  evidence  is  before  us.  The  members  of  a 
caucus  ordinarily  deem  themselves  bound  in  honor  to  vote 
in  the  election  for  the  person  whom  it  nominates,  by  the 
vote  of  a  majority,  on  condition  that  such  person  belong 


THE   SENATE.  45 

to  their  party,  and  is  fit  for  the  office  in  point  of  character 
and  ability.  Bribery,  therefore,  which  changes  the  result 
in  the  caucus,  would  ordinarily  determine  the  election. 

li  B,  C,  and  D  have  promised  to  vote  as  A  shall  vote,  if 
A  be  corrupted,  four  votes  are  gained  by  the  process, 
although  B,  C,  and  D  be  innocent.  In  looking,  therefore, 
to  see  whether  an  election  by  the  Legislature  was  procured 
or  effected  by  bribery,  it  may  be  very  important  to  discover 
whether  that  bribery  procured  the  nomination  of  a  caucus, 
whose  action  a  majority  of  the  Legislature  were  bound  in 
honor  to  support.  Seventy-nine  persons  attended  the  Sen- 
atorial caucus  and  voted  on  the  first  ballot.  Of  these  Mr. 
Payne  had  the  votes  of  46,  Ward  17,  Pendleton  15,  Booth  1. 
If  six  only  of  Mr.  Payne's  votes  in  the  caucus  were  pro- 
cured by  briber}'-,  the  result  oi  the  election  of  Senator  was 
clearly  brought  about  by  that  means.  Now,  Messrs.  Little 
and  Butterworth  tander  specific  proof,  part  of  which  was 
before  the  Ohio  committee  and  part  here  offered  for  the 
first  time,  directly  and  very  strongly  tending  to  create  the 
belief  as  to  each  of  ten  of  the  members  of  the  Ohio  Legis- 
lature that  his  vote  for  Mr.  Payne  was  purchased,  and  that 
proper  process  and  inquiry  will  establish  the  fact  by  com- 
petent and  sufficient  evidence. 

One  member,  after  the  caucus,  deposited  $2,500  in  two 
amounts,  and  being  charged  that  it  was  the  price  of  his  vote 
did  not  persist  in  a  denial. 

In  submitting  their  views  the  minority  urged  the  follow- 
ing with  great  force : 

It  will  hardly  be  doubted  that  cases  of  purchase  of  seats 
in  the  Senate  will  multiply  rapidly  under  the  decision  pro- 
posed by  the  majority  of  the  committee.  The  first  great 
precedent  to  constitute  the  rule  under  this  branch  of  law  is 
to  be  this: 

Held^  By  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  that  a  charge 
made  by  the  Legislature  of  a  State,  and  by  the  committee 
of  the  political  party  to  which  the  larger  number  of  its 
citizens  belong,  and  by  ten  of  its  Representatives  in  Con- 
gress, that  an  election  of  Senator  was  procured  by  bribery, 
accompanied  by  the  offer  to  prove  the  fact,  does  not 
deserve  the  attention  of  the  Senate. 


4:6  A   CALL    TO    ACTION. 

The  Senate,  controlled  by  the  Republican  party,  adopted 
the  majority  report  and  refused  to  proceed  further  with  the 
matter.     There  seems  to  have  been  no  dispute  between  the 
majority  and  the  minority  of  the  committee  as  to  the  facts  in 
the  case.    They  differed  solely  as  to  the  proprietj^  of  farther 
investigation  and  action.      It  is  amazing  to  think  that  the 
rule  laid  down  and  its  application  in  this  particular  case,  has 
the  deliberate  .sanction  of  a  majority  of  both  Republican  and 
Democratic  Senators.     Should  we  be  surprised  that  popular 
confidence  has  been  shaken  in  the  integrity  of  this  body? 
The  Ohio  case  does  not  stand  alone.    Almost  every  state  in 
the  Union  has  been  cursed  by  the  same  shameless  and  corrupt 
use  of  money  in  Senatorial  elections,  and  hence  the  now 
almost  universal  demand  tliat  the  Senate  shall  be  made  elec- 
tive by  popular  vote.     The  disinclination  of  the  Senate  to 
l)roceed  with  this  case  was  well  understood  by  the  people, 
and  the  rule  upon  whicli  the  committee  based  its  report  was 
felt  to  be  abhorrent  to  honesty,  decency  and  common-sense. 
When  it  is  once  established  by  reliable  evidence,  that  a 
single  member  who  voted  for  the  successful  candidate,  re- 
ceived or  was  offered  money  to  cast  his  vote  or  use  his  influ- 
ence, it  should  vitiate  the  election.     Theie  is  neither  safety 
nor  propriety  in  any  other  rule.      The  position  of  the  com- 
mittee offers  immunity  to  crime  and  bribery.     It  openly 
points  out  a  way  by  which  elections  to  the  Senate  can  be 
secured  by  crime  without  the  disagreeable  apprehension  of 
punishment.     Even  under  the  abominable  rule  of  the  commit- 
tee, Mr.  Payne  should  have  been  put  upon  his  trial.  It  is  clear 
that  members  were  paid  large  sums  to  vote  for  him  in  the 
Ohio  Legislative  caucus;  and  both  he  and  his  managers  were 
too  smart  to  have  expended  the  money  if  the  votes  were  not 
necessary  to  nominate  in  the  caucus  and  elect  in  the  Legisla- 
ture.     Whatever  may  have  been  the  doubts  entertained  by 
the  Senate  committee  two  years  after  the  transaction,  it  is 


THE    SENATE.  47 

certain  that  Mr.  Payne's  managers  thought  that  they  needed 
the  votes  at  the  time.  For  the  complete  history  of  this 
shameful  case  the  reader  is  referred  to  Senate  Keport  No. 
1490,  First  Session,  Forty-ninth  Congress.  But  shocking 
and  disgraceful  as  it  is,  it  can  be  matched  and  duplicated  in 
almost  every  state  in  this  Union.  We  have  selected  this  as 
a  representative  case.  It  taints  both  of  the  old  parties.  The 
Democratic  as  committing  the  felony  and  the  Republican  as 
concealing  the  crime.  The  present  constitutional  method  of 
election  is  a  lamentable  failure  and  the  situation  cries  aloud 
for  reform.  The  time  has  come  when  the  people  should  plat 
a  whip  of  cords  and  scourge  the  promotors  of  bribery  from 
the  temple.  Thej^  who  buy  will  also  sell,  and  the  punish- 
ment for  such  betrayal  of  duty  should  be  swift  and  relentless. 
Such  is  the  present  status  of  the  American  Senate.  Its 
fallen  condition  was  not  reached  b}^  a  single  bound.  It  is 
the  result  of  growth,  nurtured  by  an  aristocratic  and  undem- 
ocratic method  of  selecting  this  class  of  public  servants — a 
method  which  invites  corruption  and  destroys  in  the  person 
elected  all  sense  of  responsibility  to  the  people. 

THE   REMEDY. 

The  cure  for  this  frightful  public  affliction  cannot  be  ap- 
plied too  quickly.  It  should  consist  of  a  plain  amendment 
to  the  Constitution  which  shall  provide  for  the  election  of  the 
United  States  Senators  by  the  direct  vote  of  the  people  of  the 
respective  States.  The  writer  had  the  honor  to  introduce 
into  the  Forty-sixth,  Forty-ninth  and  Fiftieth  congresses 
joint  resolutions  which  provided  for  this  method  of  selection. 
They  were  referred  to  the  judiciary  committee  but  were 
never  reported  to  the  House,  In  the  Fiftieth  Congress,  Mr. 
Gates,  from  the  Committee  on  the  Revision  of  the  Laws,  re- 
ported favorably  a  joint  resolution  of  this  character  but  it 
was  not  acted  upon.  The  machine  managers  of  the  decrepit 
old  party  organizations  view  every  suggestion  of  change 


48  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

with  alarm.  Like  the  worn  out  sluggard  who  is  unwilling 
to  rise  with  the  dawn,  they  darken  the  windows  of  their  hab- 
itations, draw  down  the  curtains  and  shut  out  the  light  of 
day.  Let  them  slumber.  The  chastisement  of  their  sins  is 
upon  them  and  their  dim  eyes  are  turned  toward  the  stygian 
shore.  But  the  sun  still  shines,  and  a  newer  and  more  vig- 
orous civilization  will  inhabit  the  land.  We  can  expect 
nothing  from  the  old,  but  should  trust  confidingly  for  many 
good  things  from  the  new.  It  was  the  youthful  shepherd 
boy  and  not  the  rheumatic,  jealous-hearted  old  Saul,  who 
slew  the  Mighty  Man  of  Gath.  We  may  never  expect  a 
paralytic  to  compete  for  the  first  prize  as  an  athlete.  Truth 
always  chooses  its  own  champions.  It  is  ever  stronger 
than  its  defenders  and  more  powerful  than  its  foes. 

Pending  the  tedious  operation  of  amending  the  Constitu- 
tion, the  people  can  readily  secure  practical  control  over  the 
election  of  their  Senators  by  publicly  nominating  in  each 
State,  from  time  to  time,  the  man  of  their  choice,  and  by 
pubKcly  pledging  the  Legislative  candidates  to  vote  for  such 
nominees. 

In  the  tremendous  crisis  which  witnessed  the  dissolution 
and  transformation  of  political  parties  in  1858-60,  the  people 
of  Illinois  flew  to  this  method  as  to  a  rock  of  defense. 
Lincoln  and  Douglass  were  nominated  for  the  Senate  by 
their  respective  parties,  and  they  met  in  joint  debate  before 
the  people.  Their  audience  was  the  civilized  world.  The 
people  were  mentally  and  morally  equipped  by  that  debate 
for  the  unprecedented  and  dreadful  drama  upon  which  the 
curtain  was  then  destined  soon  to  rise.  The  world  lost 
nothing  by  that  struggle  of  the  giants.  Civilization  gained 
much.  One  of  the  parties  of  Illinois  recently  returned  to 
this  praiseworthy  example.  It  should  be  the  rule  at  all  times 
in  all  the  states.  The  industrial  movement  has  taken  up 
this  reform  as  one  of  its  cardinal  tenets,  and  with  unabated 
zeal  will  press  it  to  a  successful  conclusion. 


CHAPTKR    II. 


THE  SPEAKER. 

The  presiding  oflScer  of  the  British  House  of  Commons  is 
styled  the  Speaker — so  called  because  he  speaks  in  tlie  name 
of  the  House;  and  hence  the  title  was  adopted  here  by  the 
framers  of  the  Government  who  had  long  been  familiar  with 
the  organization  of  the  English  Commons. 

In  Great  Britain,  under  the  Tudors  and  Stuarts,  the  Speaker 
was  chosen  by  the  King  and  was  the  main  instrument  in  his 
equipment  of  tyranny.  For  many  years,  however,  this  officer 
has  been  chosen  by  the  House.  At  the  opening  of  Parlia- 
ment the  Queen  graciously  invites  the  Commons  to  select  a 
Speaker  and  they  accordingly  proceed  to  carry  out  the  regal 
request.  When  the  selection  is  made  it  is  submitted  to  Her 
Majesty  for  approval.  The  royal  assent  has  never  been 
withheld,  but  the  formality  proves  that  it  could  be  and  hence 
in  the  mutation  of  human  affairs,  at  some  time  it  may  be. 
The  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons  receives  a  salary  of 
iJ5,000  per  annum,  isex-officio  a  Privy  Councilor,  and  resides 
in  a  palace  provided  by  the  Government.  When  he  retires 
from  office  he  is  supplied  with  an  annuity  of  £4,000  during 
two  lives.  The  Speaker  has,  of  course,  very  great 
power,  but  his  authority  is  circumscribed  by  the  over- 
shadowing influence  of  the  Premier,  who  represents  the 
the  Ministry  and  hence  the  policy  of  the  Government  for  the 
time  being.  The  Speaker  of  the  Commons  cannot  declare 
the  House  adjourned.  This  can  only  be  done  by  a  Member. 
In  the  matter  of  recognition  when  several  Members  rise  at 
once  and  it  becomes  difficult  to  determine  who  shall  proceed, 
the  House  decides  who  shall  be  recognized.     The  sequence 


50  A    CALL    TO    ACTION. 

in  debate  is  usually  determined  by  the  "Whips"  rather 
than  by  the  Speaker.  This  will  strike  the  American  reader 
as  being  peculiar.  But  the  Whip  has  grown  to  be  a  ver}- 
important  adjunct  of  Parliamentary  authority.  He  is  n 
Member  who  has  been  empowered  by  his  political  friends  to 
assemble  or  warn  them  at  critical  moments  in  legislative 
procedure.  The  Ministry  have  three  Whips  and  the  Oppo- 
sition two. 

From  the  organization  of  the  First  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  April  1, 1789.  to  the  close  of  the  Fifty-first  Congress, 
March  4,  1891,  thirty-one  different  persons  filled  the  office 
of  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  first 
incumbent  was  Frederick  A.  Muhlenburg,  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  the  last,  Thomas  B.  Reed,  of  Maine.  From  the  year 
1789  to  1859,  or  from  the  First  to  the  Thirty-fifth  Congress, 
inclusive,  twenty-two  individuals ,  occupied  this  important 
office.  From  1860  to  March  4,  1891,  inclusive,  nine  differ- 
ent Speakers  presided  over  the  House, 

During  the  first  period,  Henry  Clay,  of  Kentucky,  was 
six  times  chosen  Speaker,  which  is  the  greatest  honor  ever 
accorded  to  any  member  of  the  American  Congress.  Next 
to  this  enviable  record  stands  the  name  of  Andrew  Steven- 
son, of  Virginia,  who  was  four  times  chosen  between  1827 
and  1833.  Since  1859  no  one  has  held  the  Chair  more  than 
six  years,  or  for  three  terms.  Schuyler  Colfax  was  Speaker 
from  1863  to  1869;  James  G.  Blaine,  from  1869  to  1875,  and 
was  succeeded  by  Michael  C.  Kerr,  of  Indiana,  who  died  in 
August  following  his  election,  and  was  succeeded  by  Samuel 
J.  Randall,  of  Pennsylvania,  for  the  unexpired  term.  Mr. 
Randall  was  also  chosen  Speaker  for  the  two  succeeding 
Congresses,  the  Forty-fifth  and  Forty-sixth.  He  was  suc- 
ceeded by  J.  Warren  Keiffer,  of  Ohio,  who  served  during 
the  Forty-seventh  Congress.  John  G.  Carlisle,  of  Kentucky, 
next  succeeded  to  the  Chair  and  served  during  the  Forty- 


THE   SPEA3CER.  5] 

eighth,  Forty-ninth  and  Fiftieth  Congresses,  and  was  sue 
ceeded  by  Thomas  B.  Reed,  of  Maine. 

The  Constitution  provides  for  the  election  of  Speaker  hy 
the  House  of  Representatives.  By  the  Act  of  Congress 
approved  March  1,  1792,  it  was  provided  that  in  case  of  the 
death,  resignation  or  inability  of  both  President  and  Yice 
President,  and  in  case  there  shall  be  no  President  pro  tempore 
of  the  Senate,  the  Speaker  of  the  House  for  the  time  being 
shall  act  as  President  until  the  disability  be  removed  or  a 
President  shall  be  elected. 

The  power  and  influence  of  this  great  office  have  been 
but  imperfectly  understood  by  the  American  people;  and 
even  the  great  majority  of  men  in  public  life  have  failed  to 
comprehend  its  transcendent  influence  in  governmental 
affairs.  Through  the  force  of  tradition  and  precedent,  in 
the  course  of  the  century  it  has  been  allowed  to  absorb  about 
all  the  power  of  the  House  of  Representatives  as  well  as  the 
independence  of  the  individual  members.  Experience  has 
shown  that  when  a  majority  of  the  members  unite  in  elevat- 
ing one  of  their  number  to  preside  over  the  House,  they  are 
likely  to  be  largely  controlled  by  his  opinions  if  not  by  his 
will  in  matters  of  legislation.  This  majority  is  always  rein- 
forced by  a  large  number  of  members  who  belong  to  the 
minority,  but  who  desire  to  secure  the  favor  of  the 
Speaker.  The  cause  of  this  subserviency  will  appear  as  we 
proceed. 

Paragraph  I,  of  Rule  X,  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
provides  that  unless  otherwise  specially  ordered  by  the 
House,  the  Speaker  shall  appoint,  at  the  commencement  ol 
each  Congress,  the  standing  committees.  Paragraph  II 
of  the  same  Rule  authorizes  him  to  appoint  all  select  com 
mittees  which  may'  be  ordered  by  the  House  fromitime  to 
time. 


52  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

While  this  rule  eontempliites  that  the  House  may,  if  it  so 
desire,  provide  other  methods  of  selecting  the  committees, 
yet  in  point  of  fact  it  never  does  otherwise  order,  and  the 
power  to  appoint  remains  unquestioned  and  is  invariably 
exercised  by  the  Speaker. 

We  have  said  that  Rule  X  authorized  the  Speaker  to 
appoint  the  committees,  but  in  fact  the  House,  at  the  com- 
mencement of  Congress,  has  no  Rules.  True,  the  Rules  of 
the  old  Congress  are  in  print,  but  they  are  not  vital,  for 
they  perish  with  the  House  which  adopted  them.  The  new 
Congress  enters  upon  its  duties  untrammeled,  and  can,  in 
fact  does,  adopt  its  own  Rules.  Until  a  motion  is  made 
and  adopted  to  make  the  Rules  of  the  preceding  House  the 
Rules  of  the  House  then  in  session,  the  old  Rules  are  without 
force,  aud  the  body  is  simply  under  the  restraint  of  general 
parliamentary  law.  Hence,  in  its  last  analysis,  we  find  that 
the  power  accorded  to  the  Speaker  to  appoint  the  commit- 
tees is  the  result  of  custom  rather  than  of  law.  But,  how- 
ever derived,  it  is  a  fearful  power  to  lodge  in  the  hands  of 
any  one  man.  The  Speaker  must  be  chosen  from  among 
the  Members.  He  comes  from  a  district  of  prescribed 
limits,  and  a  thousand  considerations,  both  trivial  and 
important,  some  of  public  and  others  of  a  private  char- 
acter, contributed  to  his  election.  Tlie  range  of  his  mental 
vision  may  be  circumscribed,  or  his  judgment  blurred  and 
marred  by  the  local  surroundings  peculiar  to  his  district,  or 
he  may  be  entirely  free  from  all  bias  whatever.  The 
thought  we  wish  to  bring  out  is  this:  Why,  beyond  the 
point  of  absolute  necessity,  should  one  Member  be  clothed 
with  the  power  which  clearly  belongs  to  the  whole  body 
collectively?  It  .cannot  be  said  that  tlie  wisdom  of  the  one 
is  superior  to  the  judgment  of  the  whole  body  united;  nor 
can  it  be  claimed  that  anything  can  be  gained  in  the  line  of 
purity  of   purpose.       You   have  not  fortified  the  House 


THE    SPEAKER.  53 

against  corrupt  influences  and  the  seductive  power  of 
wealth;  on  the  contrary,  you  have  concentrated  all  the 
vicious  forces  of  public  life  against  a  single  individual  and 
exposed  the  Republic  to  extreme  peril. 

All  who  are  acquainted  with  legislative  history  know 
that  the  danger  of  the  abuse  of  power  is  very  great,  even 
when  the  authority  of  the  speaker  is  reduced  to  the  lowest 
point  compatible  with  the  orderly  dispatch  of  business,  and 
the  peril  is  increased  as  more  power  is  conferred.  The 
power  to  appoint  the  committees  now  conceded  to  the 
Speaker  practically  confides  all  legislation  to  his  hands. 
It  makes  liim  an  autocrat  and  enables  him  to  mould  legis- 
lation, stifle  public  sentiment,  thwart  the  will  of  the 
majority  and  defy  the  wishes  of  the  people.  It  is  a  matter 
of  common  occurrence  for  the  most  important  committees 
to  be  made  up  in  opposition  to  the  sentiments  of  a  majority 
of  the  House,  and  even  in  opposition  to  the  known  views 
of  a  majority  of  the  Members  who  belong  to  the  Speaker's 
own  party.  This  has  been  notably  true  during  the  past 
twenty  years.  A  Majority  of  the  members  of  the  House 
.  have  at  various  times  during  this  period,  been  in  favor  of 
the  unrestricted  coinage  of  silver,  and  during  the  time  that 
the  House  has  been  under  the  control  of  the  Democratic 
party,  a  majority  of  the  Members  who  belonged  to  that 
party  have  clearly  been  in  favor  of  unrestricted  coinage, 
and  yet  the  committee  on*  Coinage,  Weights  and  Measures 
has  through  all  these  years,  except  in  the  Forty-fifth 
Congress,  been  packed  solidly  against  the  measure.  Take 
as  an  example  three  important  committees.  Banking  and 
Currency,  Coinage,  Weights  and  Measures,  and  the  com- 
mittee on  the  Pacific  railroads.  It  is  entirel}'^  safe  to  say 
that  during  this  whole  period,  with  tlie  one  exception 
named,  these  committees  have  never  fairly  represented 
public  sentiment  upon  the  important  questions  over  which 


54  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

they  have  jurisdiction.  They  have  been  inmost  instances 
constructed  out  of  harmony  with  the  wishes  of  a  majority 
of  the  House,  and  many  times  in  opposition  to  the  known 
wishes  of  a  majority  of  the  Members  who  placed  the 
Speaker  in  the  chair.  And  yet  the  House  has  uniformly 
submitted  to  the  humilliation.  From  Congress  to  Congress, 
and  from  decade  to  decade,  tliis  farce  is  perpetrated  before 
the  eyes  of  the  people;  and  even  now  this  method  by  which 
a  few  circumvent  the  will  of  the  majority  is  but  little 
understood.  Public  sentiment  is  not  observed.  It  is  uni- 
formly defied.  The  object  among  our  so-called  statesmen 
seems  to  be  to  explore  and  ascertain  the  utmost  limits  and 
boundaries  of  public  forbearance.  Distrust  of  the  people 
is  apparent  throughout  all  the  stages  of  legislation.  The 
wealthy  and  powerful  gain  a  ready  hearing;  but  the  plod- 
ding, suffering,  un-organized  complaining  multitude  are 
spurned  and  derided.  No  respect  whatever  is  paid  to 
public  opinion  which  sends  the  member  to  the  National 
Congress.  If  he  is  not  in  accord  with  the  Speaker's  ideas 
of  public  policy,  although  he  may  be  burning  with  desire 
to  make  known  the  wishes  of  his  constituents  and  to  take 
the  advice  of  the  House  upon  them;  yet  he  is  purposely 
placed  at  the  tail  end  of  the  most  unimportant  committees 
known  to  the  body,  committees  which  have  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  the  great  questions  upon  which  he  was 
elected.  The  people  of  his  district  may  have  given  him  a 
hearing,  past  upon  his  theories,  approved  of  them  and 
sent  him  to  Congress  to  proclaim  them  to  the  Nation;  yet 
one  man  from  another  District  who  happens  to  have  been 
chosen  Speaker,  claims  the  right  to  declare  that  the  Member 
shall  be  muzzled,  that  he  shall  be  placed  under  ban  and  his 
theories,  without  a  hearing,  declared  to  be  forbidden  fruit. 
Perhaps  the  ideas  of  public  policy  entertained  by  the 
Speaker  are  the  identical  views  which  were  rejected  by  the 


THE    SPEAKER.  55 

people  of  the  district  in  question.  No  matter,  the  petty 
tyrant  must  be  permitted  to  practice  his  black  art,  the 
fetish  must  not  be  profaned.  Nor  is  this  proscription 
exercised  exclusively  against  Members  of  opposing  parties. 
In  every  Congress  it  is  applied  with  the  samerelentlessness 
to  Members  of  the  Speaker's  own  party  who  may  differ 
with  him  concerning  questions  of  public  policy. 

In  the  year  1878,  twelve  Independents  were  elected  to 
the  Forty-sixth  Congress  upon  certain  economic  questions. 
The  leading  contentions  presented  by  these  gentlemen 
were  the  Abolition  of  the  National  banks,  Free  coinage  of 
silver,  Increase  of  the  currency  by  the  issue  of  Legal  Tender 
Treasury  notes,  and  the  strict  Control  of  transportation 
monopolies.  They  had  presented  these  important  issues 
squarely  to  the  people  in  their  respective  districts  and  had 
been  triumphantly  elected  against  great  odds.  The  follow- 
ing are  their  names:  George  W.  Jones,  of  Texas,  William 
M.  Lowe,  of  Alabama,  Gilbert  De  LaMatyr,  of  Indiana, 
Thompson  H.  Murch  and  Geo.  W.  Ladd,  of  Maine,  Seth 
H.  Yocum  and  Hendrick  B.  Wright,  of  Pennsylvania, 
Nicholas  Ford,  of  Missouri,  Daniel  L.  Russell,  of  North 
Carolina,  Albert  P.  Forsythe,  of  Illinois,  Edward  H. 
Gillette  and  James  B.  Weaver,  of  Iowa. 

A.  E.  Stevenson,  of  Illinois,  and  William  D.  Kelley,  of 
Pennsylvania,  were  closely  allied  with  the  twelve,  were 
mainly  in  sympathy  with  iheir  views  of  public  policy  and 
voted  for  their  nominee  for  Speaker,  but  did  not  claim 
to  be  members  of  the  new  party.  This  was  largely  true, 
also,  ot  Hendrick  B,.  Wright,  although  he  remained  out  of 
the  Democratic  caucus  and  permitted  his  name  to  be  used 
as  the  candidate  of  the  third  party. 

The  gentlemen  above  named  represented  the  protest  '.)f 
the  producers  of  wealth  against  the  abominable  economic 
policy  of  the  old  parties,  whicli  had  just   convulsed   the 


56  A   CALL  TO    ACTION. 

country  with  panic,  and  plunged  the  industrial  portion  of 
the  people  headlong  into  poverty  and  disaster. 

The  Democrats  had  control  ©f  the  House  and  organized 
by  the  election  of  Samuel  J.  Randall,  of  Pennsylvania,  as 
Speaker.  He  received  144  votes  against  125  for  James  A. 
Garfield,  of  Ohio,  the  Republican  candidate,  13  for  Hend- 
rick  B.  Wright,  of  Pennsylvania,  the  candidate  of  the 
National  Greenback  party,  and  1  vote  for  William  D. 
Kelley.  The  whole  number  of  Members  elected  to  this 
Congress  was  303.  Hence  it  will  be  seen  that  although 
Mr.  Randall  received  a  majority  of  all  the  votes  cast,  he 
fell  eight  votes  short  of  having  a  majority  of  the  members 
elect.  The  point  that  a  majority  of  all  the  Members  elect 
was  necessary  to  a  choice  was  raised  by  Mr.  Conger,  of 
Michigan,  but  the  Clerk  of  the  House,  Mr.  Geo,  W. 
Adams,  ruled  that  a  majority  of  a  Quorum  voting  could 
lawfully  elect  the  Speaker.  This  now  seems  to  be  the 
settled  construction  of  the  law. 

The  Speaker  was  elected  and  the  Members  sworn  in  on 
the  18th  day  of  March,  1878,  but  the  committees  were  not 
announced  until  April  11th  —a  lapse  of  twenty-five  days. 

Soon  after  the  third  party  contingent  made  its  appear- 
ance in  Washington,  it  became  apparent  that  the  Represent- 
atives of  that  party  were  to  meet  with  but  little  considera- 
tion from  those  who  controlled  the  proceedings  of  the 
House.  Important  questions  affecting  the  financial  policy 
of  the  Government  and  the  disposition  to  be  made  of  nearly 
$800,000,000  of  public  debt,  and  in  fact  the  whole  range  of 
fiscal  matters,  would  be  up  for  consideration  during  the 
session;  but  the  managers  of  the  two  old  parties  had  settled 
lines  of  policy  which  were  essentially  alike  concerning 
these  measures,  and  differing  only  in  the  degree  of  their 
devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  capitalistic  classes.  No 
serious  interference  was  to  be  permitted  from  any  quarter. 


THE  SPEAKEE.  57 

Tlie  Democrats  had  control  of  both  branches  of  Congress 
for  the  first  time  since  the  close  of  the  war.  Fernando 
Wood,  of  New  York,  who  was  made  chairman  of  the 
House  Committee  on  Ways  and  Means,  had  prepared  a 
bill  which  provided  for  the  funding  of  the  above  named 
portion  of  the  public  debt  for  forty  years.  Mr.  Garfield  had 
a  substitute  making  the  period  fift}^  years.  A  Presidential 
campaign  was  just  ahead  and  the  desire  to  secure  the  sup- 
port of  the  money  power,  had  evoked  a  spirit  of  rivalry 
between  the  leaders  of  the  old  parties  which  was  as  instruc- 
tive to  the  whole  country  as  it  was  disgusting  to  patriotic 
people.  The  leaders  of  both  would  scheme  in  the  com- 
mittee rooms  in  favor  of  the  monopolies  and  the  money 
kings,  and  then  dail}'  emerge  into  the  arena  of  the  House 
and  quarrel  and  rave  like  maniacs  over  sectional  matters. 
Almost  ever}^  da}^  witnessed  the  war-dance  in  which  the 
chiefs  would  exhibit  the  ghastly  scalps  they  had  taken  and 
lay  bare  the  wounds  inflicted  during  the  war.  i^ou  could 
never  tell  when  the  paroxisms  were  to  come  on.  They 
would  burst  forth  at  the  most  inopportune  periods.  Pande- 
monium reigned  throughout  the  extra  session  and  was 
resumed  with  renewed  fury  when  the  House  convened 
regularly  the  following  December. 

The  Greenback  contingent  determined  to  make  a  bold 
stand  for  the  people,  and  to  place  their  banner  above  the 
angry  storm  of  sectionalism  which  was  everywhere  howling 
about  them.  To  this  end  the}^  resolved  first,  to  oppose  with 
all  the  power  at  their  command  all  attempts  to  fund  the 
debt,  and  second,  to  force  the  House  upon  record  upon  the 
following  questions:  The  abolition  of  the  National  banks, 
the  issue  of  an  adequate  supply  of  Legal  Tender  treasury 
notes,  and  the  policy  of  the  unrestricted  Coinage  of  silv^er. 
Under  the  rule  then  in  force  it  was  proper  for  any  member 
on  Monday,  after  the  Journal  had  been  read  and  approved, 


58  A   CALL    TO    ACTION. 

if  he  could  secure  the  recognition  of  the  Chair,  to  move  to 
suspend  the  Rules  and  place  upon  its  passage  any  bill  or 
resolution  which  he  might  desire  to  offer.  Accordingly,  on 
the  first  Monday  in  January,  1880,  the  writer  drafted  the 
following  resolutions,  and  asked  to  be  recognized  to  move 
a  suspension  of  the  Rules  in  order  to  place  them  immediately 
upon  their  passage: 

Resolved,.  That  it  is  the  sense  of  this  House  that  all  cur- 
rency, whether  metalic  or  paper,  necessary  for  the  use  and 
convenience  of  the  people,  should  be  issued  and  its  volume 
controlled  by  the  Government,  and  not  by  or  through  the 
banking  corporations  of  the  country;  and  when  so  issued 
should  be  a  full  legal  tender  in  payment  of  all  debts,  public 
and  private. 

Resolved^  That,  in  the  judgment  of  this  House,  that  por- 
tion of  the  interest-bearing  debt  of  the  United  States  which 
shall  become  redeemable  in  the  year  1881,  or  prior  thereto, 
being  in  amount  $782,000,000,  should  not  be  refunded 
beyond  the  power  of  the  Government  to  call  in  said  obli- 
gations and  pay  them  at  any  time,  but  should  be  paid  as 
rapidly  as  possible,  and  according  to  contract.  To  enable 
the  Government  to  meet  these  obligations,  the  mints  of  the 
United  States  should  be  operated  to  their  full  capacity  in 
the  coinage  of  Standard  Silver  Dollars,  and  such  other 
coinage  as  the  business  interests  of  the  country  may 
require. 

Recognition  was  refused  and  the  House  adjourned  in  hot 
haste.  On  the  following  Monday  the  attempt  to  secure 
recognition  from  the  Speaker  was  followed  with  like 
results.  For  thirteen  weeks  (three  months)  the  struggle 
went  on.  After  a  few  weeks  of  fruitless  effort,  the  resolu- 
tions got  into  the  papers  and  began  to  attract  very  wide 
attention.  Crowds  beffan  to  throng  the  galleries  on  Mon- 
days, and  the  metropolitan  newspapers  were  full  of  criti- 
3isms  upon  the  aggravating  perseverance  of  the  author  of 
:he  resolutions.  The  Speaker  was  overwhelmed  with  cor- 
respondence touching  the  matter,  man}^  praising  him  for 


THE 'SPEAKER.  59 

his  firmness  and  others  denouncing  him  as  a  tyrant  worthy 
of  death.  Prominent  caricaturists  were  employed  by  the 
monopoly  organs  to  fill  the  illustrated  weeklies  with  gross 
and  uncomplimentary  exaggerations  of  the  author  and  the 
scope  of  his  resolutions.  The  imaginative  genius  of  Nast 
was  called  upon  to  swell  the  volume  of  misrepresentation 
and  ridicule.  The  resolutions  had  by  this  time  attracted 
universal  notice.  Everybody  read  them  and  wondered 
why  they  should  meet  with  such  fierce  denunciation. 
Finally  on  March  6,  1880,  Harper's  Weekly^  came  out  with 
a  full  page  scurrillous  travesty,  representing  the  writer  as  a 
donkey,  braying  to  the  utter  consternation  of  the  House. 
The  Speaker  was  represented  as  standing  with  his  back  to 
the  author  of  the  resolutions,  members  as  holding  their 
hands  over  their  6ars,  others  as  endeavoring  to  crawl  under 
the  desks,  and  the  Mace  as  having  been  blown  violenth^ 
from  the  hands  of  the  Sergeant-at-Arms  while  he  was  vainly 
attempting  to  hide  from  the  storm.  A  fao  simile  of  this 
caricature  will  be  found  at  the  close  of  this  chapter. 

When  my  attention  was  called  to  the  publication  I 
resolved  to  make  the  best  possible  use  of  it.  A  copy  was 
procured  and  safely  deposited  in  my  desk.  When  Monday 
came  I  again  addressed  the  Chair  for  recognition,  and  was 
refused.  I  then  rose  to  a  question  of  privilege,  which, 
under  the  Rules,  the  Speaker  was  not  at  liberty  to  ignore. 
The  Chair  bade  me  state  it.  Holding  up  a  copy  of  Har- 
per's^ containing  the  caricature,  I  called  attention  to  the 
fact  that  a  leading  journal  of  the  country  had  grossly 
slandered  the  Speaker.  That  it  represented  him  as  stand- 
ing with  his  back  to  me,  when  in  fact  the  most  that  he  had 
ever  done  was  to  shut  his  eyes.  At  this  juncture  the 
following  colloquy  occurred: 

The  Speaker:  The  gentleman  from  Iowa  will  address 
himself  to  the  question  of  privilesfe,  and  not  to  the  picture. 


60  A   CALL    TO    ACTION. 

Mr.  Garfield,  (addressiuo:  Mr.  Weaver):  Which  figure 
represents  yourself  and  which  the  Speaker? 

Mr.  Weaver:  I  am  represented  b}^  the  one  with  long 
ears.  Does  not  the  gentleman  kn©w  that  Balaam's  ass  saw 
the  angel  in  the  way  before  his  rider  did?  All  Bible  read' 
ers  understand  it  perfectly. 

The  Speaker  demanded  order,  which  was,  after  awhile, 
restored,  and  the  struggle  was  passed  for  another  week. 

Notwithstanding  the  protracted  struggle  over  these  reso- 
lutions the  personal  relations  between  their  author  and  the 
Speaker  were  always  cordial  and  friendly.  Mr.  Randall 
stated  privately'  that  his  party  did  not,  in  the  face  of  a 
Presidential  election,  wish  to  be  placed  upon  record  on  what 
they  regarded  as  mere  abstractions,  and  for  that  reason 
recognition  had  been  withheld. 

Finally  about  the  first  of  April,  it  became  apparent  that 
the  long  contest  would  soon  close.  Rumors  that  recogni- 
tion would  be  conceded  on  the  following  Monday  obtained 
among  the  Members  and  it  was  evident  that  the  intimation 
had  been  given  out  by  the  Speaker  himself.  Then  another 
dilemma  presented  itself.  Under  the  rules  a  yea  and  nay 
vote  could  not  be  secured  unless  demanded  by  at  least 
thirty  members.  As  there  were  but  thirteen  of  the  National 
party  in  the  House,  the  outlook  for  a  record  of  the  vote  was 
exceedingly  dark.  In  this  emergency  we  went  to  Mr. 
Garfield  and  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  on  the  follow- 
ing Mo'nday  a  vote  would  be  taken.  We  stated  that  the 
Republican  party  was  already  on  record  against  every 
proposition  contained  in  the  resolutions.  That  the  Demo- 
cratic Members,  when  at  home,  generally  favored  the  prop- 
ositions but  always  fought  shy  of  them  after  reaching 
Washington.  We  asked  him  if  he  could  not,  in  view  of 
these  facts,  assist  in  securing  a  yea  and  nay  vote?  He 
replied  that  he  would  consult  with  his  colleagues  and  give 
us  an  answer  that  afternoon.     In  the  course  of  an  hour  he 


THE    SPEAKER.  61 

reported  that  his  side  of  the  House  would  join  in  the 
demand  for  a  record  of  the  vote.  On  the  following  Mon- 
day, April  5,  I  was  recognized,  made  the  necessary  motion 
to  suspend  the  rules  and  demanded  that  the  vote  be  taken 
by  yeas  and  nays.  Upon  statement  of  the  demand  by  the 
Chair  the  Greenback  members,  General  Ewing,  of 
Ohio,  and  Mr.  Tillman,  of  South  Carolina,  rose  to  their 
feet  followed  by  the  entire  Eepublican  side  of  the  House. 
The  yeas  and  nays  were  accordingly  ordered.  With  the 
exception  of  General  Ewing,  Mr.  Tillman,  and  possibly  one 
or  two  others,  every  Democrat  left  the  hall  and  repaired  to 
the  cloak  rooms  for  consultation.  On  the  first  call  of  the 
roll  but  three  or  four  Democrats  responded,  while  the  Ke- 
publicans,  with  the  exception  of  Belford,  of  Colorado, 
voted  solidly  in  the  negative.  On  the  second  call  of  the 
roll  there  were  eighty- four  ayes,  and  one  hundred  and 
seventeen  noes.  Not  voting,  91.  The  yeas  consisted  of 
11  Green  backers,  including  Stevenson  and  Kelly,  one  Re- 
publican, Mr.  Belford,  and  seventy-two  Democrats,  mostly 
from  the  South  and  West.  The  nays  were  composed  of  a 
solid  Republican  vote,  with  the  exceptions  stated,  reinforced 
by  eastern  and  middle  states  Democrats.  Messrs  Wright 
and  Yocum  were  unavoidably  absent,  but  paired  in  favor 
of  the  resolutions. 

We  have  given  this  memorable  battle  somewhat  in 
detail  for  the  reason  that  we  regard  it  as  the  great  initial 
struggle  of  the  mighty  movement  now  in  progress  through- 
out the  Republic.  The  resolutions  over  which  the  pro- 
tracted contest  arose  embodied  the  very  essence  and  marrow 
of  the  vigorous  contention  presented  by  organized  labor  at 
the  present  time. 

The  Speaker  should  always  be  selected  with  reference  to 
bis  views  of  public  policy,  but  it  is  never  any  part  of  his 
duty  to  play  the  tyrant.     It  is  not  his  province  to  originate 


62  A    CALL  TO    ACTION. 

political  creeds,  but  to  represent  and  to  assist  the  law- 
making body  to  faithfully  reflect  the  will  of  the  great 
constituency.  If  nominated  by  a  caucus,  that  caucus 
should  have  some  test  of  membership  besides  that  of  mere 
party  name.  Every  sensible  person  knows  that  a  man  may 
be  an  eminent  and  devoted  Democrat  or  Republiean,  be 
entirely  loyal  to  his  party,  and  yet  the  world  be  profoundly 
ignorant  concerning  his  vIqws  upon  the  most  important 
questions  of  public  concern.  He  may  be  the  most  pliant 
tool  of  monopoly  and  still  be  an  acceptable  and  an  un- 
usually influential  member  of  either  of  said  parties.  It  is 
well  known  that  one  of  these  parties  has  had  no  test  oi 
membership  since  the  days  of  Jackson,  and  that  the  other 
has  had  none  since  the  death  of  Lincoln.  All  that  is 
necessary  to  become  a  member  of  either  is  to  take  upon 
yourself  the  party  name.  If  you  will  but  do  that,  you  may 
retain  your  own  notions  of  public  affairs.  Under  this  state 
of  faots  men  holding  to  antagonistic  creeds  and  policies 
unite  in  electing  a  Speaker,  and  in  every  such  instance  the 
people  are  crucified.  The  party  is  served  but  the  country 
is  betrayed.  The  organization  is  triumphant  but  human 
rights  are  placed  at  the  mercy  of  the  time-server  and  the 
tyrant. 

The  writer  served  in  Congress  under  the  Speakership  oi 
Mr.  Randall  and  Mr.  Carlisle.  These  eminent  gentlemen, 
ranking  equal  in  ability  to  any  who  have  ever  filled  the 
Chair,  were  as  wide  apart  as  the  poles  upon  what  they  re- 
garded as  the  supreme  question  of  the  period,  Mr. 
Randall  was  an  ultra-protectionist,  while  Mr.  Carlisle 
favored  a  tariff  for  revenue,  with  strong  leanings  toward 
free  trade  as  soon  as  that  policy  can  be  safely  reached. 
Both  were  Democrats  and  met  in  caucus  upon  terms  of 
perfect  equality.  The  monometalists  and  the  bi-metalists, 
the  bank  men  and  the  anti-bank  men,  monopolists  and  anti- 


THE    SENATE.  63 

monopolists,  those  who  favored  trusts  and  those  who 
abhorred  and  would  uproot  them,  the  sharper  from  Wall 
street  and  the  inexperienced  Member  from  the  rural  dis- 
trct — all  met  in  the  same  caucus,  all  were  Democrats,  and 
they  united  in  selecting  the  man  of  their  choice  for 
Speaker,  taking  especial  care  not  to  provoke  a  disclosure 
on  his  part  of  anything  that  he  believed  concerning  public 
matters. 

Parties  which  have  no  test  of  membership  and  caucuses 
which  have  no  test  of  admission  to  their  councils,  are  an 
abomination  and  they  exist  only  for  evil. 

It  would  more  nearly  comport  with  the  dignity  and 
character  of  our  chief  law-making  body  if  the  assignment 
of  Members  to  committees  were  made  by  a  well-guarded 
special  committee,  selected  by  the  House  itself — a  com- 
mittee in  which  all  parties  and  shades  of  opinion  could  be 
fairly  represented.  It  is  time  the  Speaker  of  the  American 
House  of  Representatives  should  be  shorn  of  his  autocratic 
and  unwarranted  power. 

SPEAKER   KEED's    EULE. 

Article  I,  Section  Y,  of  the  Constitution  contains  the 
following  provision: 

"Each  House  shall  be  the  Judge  of  the  Elections, 
Returns  and  qualifications  of  its  own  Members,  and  a 
Majority  of  each  shall  constitute  a  Quorum  to  do  business  : 
but  a  smaller  number  may  adjourn  from  day  to  day,  and 
may  be  authorized  to  compel  the  Attendance  of  absent 
Members,  in  such  Manner,  and  under  such  penalties  as 
each  House  may  provide." 

Clause  I,  of  Rule  VIH,  is  as  follows: 

"Every  member  shall  be  present  within  the  hall  of  the 
House  during  its  sittings  unless  excused  or  necessarily 
prevented;  and  shall  vote  on  each  question  put,  unless,  on 
motion  made  before  division  or  the  commencement  of  the 
roll  call  and  decided  without  debate,   he  shall  be  excused. 


64r  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

or  unless  he  has  a  direct  personal  or  pecuniary  interest  in 
the  event  of  such  question." 

It  has  been  uniformly  held  that  a  Quorum  of  the  House 
consists  of  a  majority  of  the  Members  chosen.  And  until 
the  Fifty-first  Congress  it  was  further  held  that  in  order  to 
constitute  a  Quorum  a  majority  of  the  Members  chosen 
must  not  only  be  present,  but  must  participate  in  the  vote, 
either  for  or  against  a  proposition. 

In  the  Fifty-first  Congress  it  was  held  by  Speaker  Reed 
that  a  majority  of  the  Members  chosen,  if  present  in  the 
hall  when  the  vote  was  being  taken,  constituted  a  Quorum, 
whether  a  majority  of  them  voted  or  not.  That  if,  under 
such  circumstances,  a  minority  only  voted,  it  was  suflEicient 
to  pass  a  measure;  and  he  accordingly  instructed  the  Clerk 
to  enter  upon  the  Journal  the  names  of  the  Members 
present  but  not  voting,  and  declared  the  bills  passed.  The 
House,  by  a  strict  party  vote,  afterwards  formally  adopted 
the  Speaker's  construction  and  made  it  one  of  the  rules  for 
that  Congress.  Much  bitterness  was  evoked  by  this  con- 
struction of  the  law.  Public  opinion,  and  even  experienced 
Parliamentarians  were  greatly  at  sea  concerning  the  matter. 

It  seems  to  the  writer  that  careful  reflection  will  show 
both  the  danger  and  the  fallacy  of  Speaker  Keed's  con- 
struction. It  is  not  required  by  the  Constitution  that  a 
measure  shall  receive  the  affirmative  vote  of  a  majority  of 
all  the  Members  chosen  in  order  that  it  shall  pass.  This 
rule  generally  obtains  in  State  Assemblies  under  the  pecu- 
liar provisions  of  their  local  Constitutions.  But  under  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  a  majority  of  a  Quorum 
can  pass  a  bill;  and  a  Quorum  is  made  up  of  both  yeas  and 
nays.  Hence,  under  Speaker  Reed's  construction,  if  a 
bare  Quorum  be  present,  and  but  a  minority  vote  in  tiie 
affirmative,  the  others  sitting  mute,  the  bill  is  passed,  even 
when  the  point  that  no  Quorum  has  voted  lias  been  ex- 


-^4. 


"LET  HIM  ROAR,  MR    SPEAKER." 

"Greenback,  llie  Weiivcr  (from  lowai.     -T  will  sin<i.  Ilial  tliey  sliall  hear    I 
am  not  afraid." 

—  Ifarprrs'   H'fv/./i/.  :Maioh  (i.  1880. 


THE    SPEAKER.  65 

pressly  raised.  If,  uuder  the  Constitution,  the  affirmative 
vote  of  a  majority  of  the  Members  chosen  were  necessary 
to  the  passage  of  a  bill,  then  those  who  are  opposed  to  the 
measure  could  always  vote  with  safety.  But  such  is  not 
the  law ;  and  the  only  wa}^  the  opposition  can,  in  critical 
junctures,  supply  this  defect  is  to  refuse  to  vote.  Those 
who  desire  to  pass  a  measure  which  others  regard  as  of 
doubtful  propriety,  should  see  to  it  that  it  has  the  affirma- 
tive support  of  a  majority  of  all  the  Members  chosen.  If 
Mr.  Reed's  position  be  correct,  one-fourth  of  the  333  mem- 
bers chosen  to  the  present  Congress  (Fifty-second),  can 
lawfully  legislate.  One  hundred  and  sixty-seven  of  this 
number  constitute  a  Quorum  to  do  business.  Hence,  84 
votes  being  the  majority  of  a  Quorum,  although  but  a  frac- 
tion over  one-fourth  of  the  Members  chosen  can,  if  16T 
Members  all  told  are  at  the  time  simply  present  in  the  hall, 
pass  a  bill,  however  vicious  or  important.  And  if  84  can 
lawfully  legislate  when  the  record  shows  that  less  than  a 
Quorum  have  voted,  why  may  not  any  number,  however 
small,  do  so  under  like  circumstances  ?  The  contention  of 
Speaker  Reed  is  clearly  unconstitutional  and  subversive  of 
the  independence  of  the  Members.  It  is  equivalent  to 
clothing  the  Speaker  with  the  power  of  casting  the  vote  of 
the  delinquent  Representative. 

It  is  conceded  to  be  the  plain  duty  of  each  Member  to 
be  present  in  the  hall  during  the  sittings  of  the  House,  and 
Rule  8,  provides  that  each  shall  vote  unless  excused  for  the 
reasons  stated.  The  rule  was  always  a  dead  letter,  for  the 
reason  that  it  could  not,  and  in  the  opinion  of  the  House 
ought  not,  to  be  inforced.  In  the  course  of  business  it; 
often  becomes  the  duty  of  a  conscientious  Member  not  to 
vote,  the  rule  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  Indeed,  he 
cannot  do  so  without  aiding  the  passage  of  bills  which  his 
sense  of  duty  tells  him  should  be  defeated.     Let  us  illus- 


6B  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

trate:  A  pernicious  measure  is  put  upon  its  passage.  The 
Member  and  his  constituents  regard  it  as  positively  vicious. 
A  bare  Quorum  is  present,  a  majority  of  which  favors  the 
bill.  If  a  Quorum  vote,  a  majority  yea  and  the  minorit}' 
nay,  the  bill  is  passed.  In  such  instances  a  nay  vote 
operates  to  pass  the  bill.  That  is  to  say,  the  negative  vote 
helps  to  make  the  Quorum,  a  majority  of  which  secures  the 
passage  of  the  measure.  To  all  intents  and  purposes  the 
Member  had  as  well  voted  yea.  This  is  the  old  subterfuge 
that  has  been  resorted  to  from  time  immemorial  when  a 
cunning  Member  really  desired  a  bad  measure  to  pass,  and 
wished  at  the  same  time  to  keep  his  record  straight  before 
his  constituents.  Under  such  circumstances  it  will  be 
readily  seen  that  it  becomes  the  duty  of  the  Member  to 
refrain  from  voting.  His  responsibility  is  to  his  constitu- 
ents and  not  to  the  House  or  the  Speaker.  Under  Mr. 
Reed's  rule,  the  simple  discharge  of  his  duty  to  be  always 
present  may  aid  in  the  passage  of  any  measure,  whether 
good  or  bad. 

It  is  not  probable  that  this  innovation  upon  the  settled 
practice  of  the  Century  will  ever  again  be  adopted  by  the 
House  of  Representatives.  It  is  easy  enough  to  prescribe 
Rules  which  will  restrain  and  limit  the  use  of  dilatory 
motions,  without  infracting  the  Constitution  or  destroying 
the  independence  of  the  Representative. 


CHAPTKR   III. 


THE  SUPREME   COURT. 

In  all  ages  of  the  world,  from  the  earliest  rudimentary 
organizations  of  society  t')  the  most  powerful  Nations  of 
modern  times,  the  Judicial  power  has  been  one  of  the  most 
interesting  and  important  features  of  human  Government. 
Citizenship  would  be  a  delusion,  personal  security  a  myth, 
and  the  possession  of  private  property  but  an  invitation  to 
pillage,  were  it  not  for  the  fidelity  and  incorruptibility  of 
the  Courts  of  justice.  But  it  is  not  alone  essential  that  our 
courts  shall  be  pure  in  fact.  The  people  must  have  an  abid- 
ing faith  in  their  integrity.  Society  becomes  insecure  in 
proportion  as  popular  confidence  is  shaken  in  this  respect. 
Deeply  sensible  of  this  important  truth,  it  shall  be  our  pur- 
pose to  avoid  all  unnecessary  criticism  of  the  Federal 
Judiciary;  but  where,  in  our  judgment,  warning  seems  to 
be  necessary,  we  shall  endeavor  to  speak  with  proper  tem- 
per, but  nevertheless  fearlessly  and  without  reserve.  Inas- 
much as  the  judicial  power  is  co-ordinate  with  the  other 
departments  of  Government,  the  method  of  selecting  the 
members  of  the  Court  is  of  the  highest  importance. 

For  a  period  of  four  hundred  years,  in  ancient  Rome,  the 
Praetor  was  chosen  annually  by  the  people,  but  the  choice  was 
restricted  to  the  patrician  order.  At  the  close  of  the  fourth 
century  the  office  became  accessible  to  the  plebeians.  In 
the  ancient  kingdom  of  Aragon  the  Justices  were  at  first 
appointed  and  removed  by  the  King  at  pleasure.  But 
abuses  of  power  were  frequent,  and  hence,  by  a  statute  of 
Alphonso  Y.  in  1442,  it  was  provided  that  the  Justices 
should  continue  in  office  during  life,  removable  only  on 


68  A   CALL    TO   ACTION, 

sufficient  cause  by  the  King  and  the  Cortes  united.  (Pres- 
cott's  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  I  Vol.,  108.) 

The  English  judges  for  centuries  held  their  seats  at  the 
pleasure  of  the  Crown.  This  is  the  case  with  the  Lord 
Chancellor  at  the  present  day.  But  since  William  III.  the 
Judges,  following  the  Aragonese  example,  have  held  their 
places  during  good  behavior,  though  subject  to  be  removed 
upon  the  address  of  both  houses  of  Parliament,  This  exam- 
ple has  been  followed  by  other  Nations  in  Europe  and  was, 
as  we  shall  see,  after  being  stripped  of  its  only  redeem- 
ing feature,  engrafted  upon  our  American  Judiciary. 

More  than  four  hundred  years  have  passed  away  since 
Alphonso  was  king  of  Aragon.  America,  the  lost  Atlantis, 
had  not  then  been  found;  the  art  of  printing,  which  has 
since  transformed  the  world,  had  but  just  been  discovered 
by  Coster  (1420-26).  Guttenberg  had  not  yet  printed  his 
Bible;  nor  had  the  now  effulgent  era  of  universal  enhghten- 
ment,  ushered  in  by  the  marvelous  growth  of  printing,  as 
yet  dawned  upon  mankind.  The  American  Declaration  of 
Independence  was  not  given  to  the  world  for  more  than 
three-quarters  of  a  century  after  the  accession  of  "William 
III.  A  succession  of  eight  Sovereigns  have  occupied  the 
British  throne  since  his  day,  and  the  last  one  has  worn  the 
crown  for  more  than  half  a  century.  In  the  time  of  Will- 
jam  the  world  knew  nothing  of  the  application  of  steam  as 
a  moving  power,  and  all  that  was  known  of  the  telegraph 
was  the  vague  hint  of  Gallileo,  that  there  was  a  secret  art 
by  which  persons  distantly  separated  might  converse  with 
one  another.  Man  is  no  longer  the  fierce,  ungovernable 
being  that  he  was  four  hundred,  or  even  two  hundred  years 
ago.  His  manifold  triumphs  in  science,  in  the  useful  arts, 
and  in  the  domain  of  thought,  have  enabled  him  to  achieve 
the  greater  victory  over  himself.  He  has  become  self- 
reliant,  independent  and  generally  law-abiding. 


THE   SUPREME    COURT.  69 

The  peculiar  condition  of  society  which  existed  in  Aragon 
in  1442,  and  io  Briton  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, doubtless  justified  both  the  method  of  selecting  the 
judges  and  the  tenure  by  which  they  held  their  offices.  The 
autocratic  spirit  among  the  reigning  families  was  then  a 
devouring  flame.  The  spirit  of  violence  was  universal  and 
pervaded  the  whole  body  of  the  people  in  every  part  of  the 
old  world,  whilst  popular  virtue  and  intelligence  were  at 
zero.  Under  such  conditions  the  life  tenure  was  the  only 
refuge  from  the  fierce  and  brutal  tyranny  of  the  crown  on 
the  one  side,  and  lawlessness  among  the  masses  on  the 
other.  But  the  spirit  of  Christianity  has  done  its  work,  and 
there  is  now  no  good  reason  why  enlightened  America 
should  longer  follow  these  ancient  examples  drawn  from 
the  blood-stained  annals  of  the  remote  past. 

Why  should  the  American  judiciary  of  to-day  be 
exempted  from  elective  control  or  hold  their  position 
for  life?  The  idea  was  adopted  in  the  old  world,  not 
because  it  was  free  from  objection,  but  because  it  was  less 
objectionable  than  any  other  under  the  peculiar  circum- 
stances by  which  they  were  environed.  The  conditions 
which  called  for  these  so-called  safeguards  have  vanished 
even  there;  but  the  evils  inherent  in  the  system  still  remain 
both  here  and  abroad  to  curse  mankind  and  imperil  the 
safety  of  society.  It  is  not  probable  that  any  representative 
body  of  men,  chosen  by  the  people  of  the  United  States 
to-day,  would  seriously  entertain  a  proposition  to  grant  to 
our  Supreme  Court  the  powers  now  claimed  by  that  tribunal. 
Nor  would  they  for  a  moment  think  of  appointing  the 
judges  for  life.  The  growth  of  plutocratic  spirit,  the  rapid 
rise  of  corporate  influence,  and  the  varied  experiences  of  a 
Century  under  our  Constitution,  would  imperatively  forbid 
it.  Power  must  of  course  be  confided  to  human  hands,  but 
it  is  constantly  subject  to  abuse.     Those  who  exercise  it 


TO  A    CALL    TO    ACTION, 

should  always  be  under  the  restraint  of  those  from  whom  it 
was  derived.  Elective  control  is  the  only  safeguard  of  lib- 
erty. If  the  history  of  the  republics  of  the  earth  has  in  store 
for  our  race  a  single  lesson  of  value,  it  is  this. 

The  learned  Chancellor  Kent,  in  his  great  work  on  Ameri- 
can law,  attempts  to  justify  the  mode  by  which  we  select 
our  Federal  Judiciary  and  the  tenure  by  which  they  hold 
their  seats,  by  resorting  to  the  following  bit  of  casuistry: 
"But  all  plans  of  Government  which  suppose  the  people 
will  always  act  with  wisdoni  and  integrity  are  plainly  euto- 
pian  and  contrary  to  uniform  experience.  Governments  must 
be  formed  for  man  as  he  is,  and  not  as  he  would  be  if  he  were 
free  from  vice!"  It  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to  the 
learned  jurist  that  it  is  equally  contrary  to  experience  and 
fully  as  eutopian  to  suppose  that  our  judges  appointed  for 
life  will  always  act  with  wisdom  and  prudence.  It  is  quite 
as  important  that  Government  should  be  formed  for  the 
judge  as  he  is  and  not  for  the  judge  as  he  would  be  if 
he  were  free  from  the  vices  and  passions  incident  to 
human  nature.  Besides,  the  people  must  touch  their  Gov- 
ernment at  some  point;  and  is  it  not  probable  that  they 
would  act  with  as  much  wisdom  and  prudence  in  selecting 
their  Judiciary,  were  they  permitted  to  do  so,  as  they  now 
do  in  selecting  those  with  whom  the  appointing  power 
is  to  reside? 

Our  Federal  Judicial  system  is  remarkable  and  anoma- 
lous. It  is  lifted  above  both  State  and  Federal  governments, 
and  is  not  responsible  to  either  except  in  matters  of  personal 
misbehavior,  or  malfeasance  in  office,  to  aa  extent  that  would 
render  the  individual  judges  liable  to  impeachment.  Their 
method  of  appointment,  freedom  from  responsibility,  life 
tenure  of  office,  exemption  from  the  ordinary  struggles 
common  to  human  nature  in  tlie  battle  for  bread,  their  arbi- 
trary and  extraordinary  power,  tend,  in  this  day  and  age. 


THE   SUPREME   COTJBT.  71 

to  separate  them  entirely  from  the  great  body  of  the  people 
and  to  impart  growth  and  vigor  to  all  the  dangerous  ele- 
ments of  human  nature. 

The  Executive  never  consults  popular  sentiment  in  mak- 
ing his  nominations.  In  practice  it  is  rarely  ever  known 
who  is  to  be  chosen  until  the  official  notification  is  sent  in 
to  the  Senate.  When  that  body  and  the  Executive  are  in 
poKtical  accord,  confirmation,  as  a  rule,  follows  quickly. 
When  once  confirmed,  the  wisdom  of  the  appointment  can 
never  be  reviewed.  A  member  of  this  Court,  appointed  at 
the  age  of  forty-five  and  serving  until  he  is  seventy,  will 
witness  twelve  complete  changes  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, four  in  the  Senate,  and  six  in  the  Executive.  A 
whole  generation  may  live,  suffer  and  pass  from  the  stage 
of  action  before  the  wrong  inflicted  by  a  bad  appointment 
can  be  corrected,  unless  the  legislative  arm  shall  interpose. 
How  strange  that  just  at  the  point  where  we  lodse  the 
greatest  power  we  should  sever  all  connection  with  the 
people,  who  are  the  embodiment  of  Sovereignty  and  the 
fountain  of  all  authority.  We  shall  learn  before  we  reach 
the  close  of  this  chapter  that  it  is  quite  as  important  that 
popular  liberty  and  the  peace  of  society  shall  be  protected 
from  the  inconsiderate,  incompetent,  rash  and  tyrannical 
tendencies  inherent  in  our  Court  of  Last  resort,  as  it  is  that 
we  should  establish  safeguards  against  the  encroachments 
and  infidelity  of  any  other  class  of  public  servants. 

The  Government  of  the  tJnited  States  is  composed  of 
thre".  co-ordinate  branches.  Legislative,  Executive  and 
Judicial.  But  the  Legislative  is  sub-divided  into  two  inde- 
pendent bodies — the  Senate  and  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives. To  speak  accurately  then,  Sovereignty  with  us  has 
been  divided  into  four  parts,  represented  by  the  House, 
the  Senate,  the  Executive  and  the  Judiciary.  It  is  a  start- 
ling fact  chat  the  people  are   only  permitted   to  directly 


72  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

elect  one  out  of  the  four,  the  House,  while  the  other 
three-fourths  are  exempt  from  elective  control  and  popular 
supervision.  Should  the  reader  insist  that  the  Executive  is 
chosen  in  fact,  though  not  in  form,  by  the  people,  the  follow- 
ing figures  will  serve  to  fully  dispel  that  illusion:  In  1844 
Polk  received  less  than  fifty  per  cent  of  the  popular  vote, 
but  62  per  cent  of  the  Electoral  vote.  In  1848  Gen.  Taylor 
received  47  per  cent  of  the  popular  vote  and  56  per  cent  of 
the  Electoral  vote.  In  1852  Mr.  Pierce  received  a  small 
raajorit}^  on  the  popular  vote  and  85  per  cent  of  the  Elec- 
toral vote.  Mr.  Buchanan  in  1856  received  but  45  per 
cent  of  the  popular  vote  and  59  per  cent  of  the  Electoral 
vote.  Mr.  Lincoln  received  in  1860,  40  per  cent  of  the 
popular  vote  and  59  per  cent  of  the  Electoral  vote.  In 
1864  he  received  55  per  cent  of  the  popular  vote  and  91 
per  cent  of  the  Electoral  vote.  Gen.  Grant  in  1868,  had 
57  per  cent,  and  in  1872,  55  per  cent;  while  in  his  first 
election  he  had  73  per  cent  and  in  his  second  81  per  cent 
of  the  Electoral  vote.  In  1876  Hayes  had  49  per  cent  of 
the  popular  vote  and  50^^-  per  cent  of  the  Electoral  vote. 
Gen.  Garfield  had  barely  a  majority  of  the  popular  vote 
but  60  per  cent  of  the  Electoral  vote.  Mr.  Cleveland  had 
48f  per  cent  of  the  popular  vote  and  54f  per  cent  of  the 
Electoral  vote.  President  Harrison  had  a  fraction  over  48 
per  cent  of  the  popular  vote  and  58i  per  cent  of  the  Elec- 
toral vote.  Prior  to  the  year  1824  the  Presidential  electors 
were  not  chosen  by  the  people  but  were  selected  by  the 
State  Legislatures,  and  since  that  time,  as  the  reader  is  well 
aware,  in  a  large  majority  of  instances,  the  candidates 
selected  for  the  Chief  Magistracy  by  the  National  conven- 
tions of  the  old  established  parties,  are  generally  desig- 
nated by  a  few  skillful  manipulators,  after  an  understanding 
has  been  reached  that  the  selection  of  the  particular  candi- 
date will  inure  to  the  special  benefit  of  the  combination, 


THE   SUPREME   COURT.  73 

and  not  because  of  the  fitness  of  the  candidate  for  the  high 
duties  of  the  office .  So  the  fact  remains  beyond  dispute 
that  under  our  present  SA^stem,  three  out  of  the  four  sub- 
divisions of  Government  are  practically  placed  beyond  the 
control  of  the  multitude.  It  is  creditable  to  the  corpora- 
tions, that  at  every  election  for  Members  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  they  show  some  willingness  to  run  an  even 
race  to  see  whether  the}'  or  the  people  shall  control  the 
remaining  one-fourth. 

Let  us  now  proceed  to  inquire  closely  into  the  practical 
operation  of  our  Judicial  system  and  see  if  any  dangerous 
tendencies  have  manifested  themselves  during  the  Century 
in  which  it  has  been  upon  trial. 

DANGEROUS    ASSUMPTION    OF    POWER. 

Under  the  kingly  prerogatives  of  our  Supreme  Court, 
which  will  never  willingl}^  be  surrendered,  Congress  may 
enact  a  law  and,  after  the  fullest  consultation  with  his  Con- 
stitutional advisers,  the  Executive  may  give  it  his  approval, 
and  yet  a  majority  of  the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court 
may,  and  often  do,  assume  to  declare  the  joint  and  solemn 
act  of  the  National  Legislature  and  of  the  Executive  to 
be  null  and  void.  The  fact  that  both  branches  of  Congress 
acting  separately,  the  Executive  and  his  Cabinet  and  the 
great  body  of  the  people  before  whom  it  may  have  been  dis- 
cussed, have  reached  a  different  conclusion,  does  not  in  the 
least  deter  the  Court  from  the  exercise  of  this  power.  It  was 
the  boast  ©f  our  fathers,  as  it  lias  been  the  pride  of  their  chil- 
dren, that  we  had  gotten  rid  of  that  cruel  fallacy  of  king- 
craft— "  the  King  can  do  no  wrong."  But  it  seems  that  we 
have  incarnated  it,  clotiied  it  with  the  Ermine  and  given  it 
an  abiding  place  in  our  Federal  Judiciary. 

The  first  term  of  the  Supreme  Court  was  held  in  New 
York,  then  the  seat  of  the  Federal  Government,  in  the 
month  of  February,  1700.     As  early  as  1702,  some  of  the 


T4  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

Circuit  judges  had  refused  to  comply  with  an  early  act  of 
Congress,  directing  the  Secretary  of  War  to  place  upon  the 
pension  list  the  names  of  such  disabled  officers  and  soldiers 
as  should  be  reported  to  him  by  the  Circuit  courts.  The 
judges  deemed  the  act  unconstitutional  and  refused  to  cer- 
tify the  names  of  the  soldiers.  But  in  1803,  in  the  case  of 
Maihury  m.  Jas.  Madison,  the  whole  question  of  the 
authority  of  the  court  to  declare  an  Act  of  Congress  uncon- 
stitutional was  elaborately  reviewed  by  Chief  Justice  Mar- 
shall, who  pronounced  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  court. 
The  question  was  with  regard  to  a  provision  of  the  Act  of 
Congress  establishing  the  judicial  system  of  the  United 
States,  which  clothed  the  Supreme  Court  with  authority  to 
issue  writs  of  mandamus  to  public  officers.  The  object 
sought  to  be  accomplished  in  this  particular  case  was  to 
compel  James  Madison,  then  Secretary  of  State,  to  deliver 
to  Marbury  his  commission  as  justice  of  the  peace,  which 
had  been  signed  by  Thomas  Jefferson,  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  placed  in  Mr.  Madison's  hands  for 
delivery  to  Marbury,  delivery  having  been  refused  for 
some  reason.  The  learned  Chief  Justice  declared  that  it 
was  the  prerogative  and  the  duty  of  the  Court  to  pass  upon 
the  constitutionality  of  the  Acts  of  Congress,  when  properly 
raised,  and  then  held  that  the  act  in  question  was  repug- 
nant to  the  Constitution  and  therefore  void.  This  earlj-- 
decision  has  been  followed  uniformly  through  subsequent 
years  in  a  great  variety  of  cases,  until  at  present  the  power 
of  the  Court  in  this  respect  seems  to  be  no  longer  ques- 
tioned. It  is  now  imj^eHum  in  imperio.  The  better  doctrine, 
that  the  co-ordinate  branches  of  the  government  are  inde- 
pendent, possessing  the  right  to  interpret  the  Constitution 
for  themselves,  seems  to  have  lost  favor  with  both  bar  and 
bench.  The  safety  of  our  modern  progressive  civilization 
calls  aloud  for  a  return  to  this  construction  of  our  funda- 


THE    SUPREME    COURT.  75 

mental  law,  or  at  least  for  some  modification  of  present 
judicial  pretensions. 

The  Federal  Judiciary  is  co-ordinate,  but  should  not  be 
regarded  as  superior  in  authority  to  the  other  departments 
of  Government.  This  is  the  only  safe  cannon  of  inter- 
pretation . 

Mr.  Jefferson,  as  late  as  September  28,  1820,  in  a  letter 
written  to  Mr.  Jarvis,  denies  in  the  most  emphatic  manner 
that  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  ever  intended  or  ever 
did  clothe  the  Sapreme  Court  with  any  such  power,  and 
claimed  that  the  exercise  of  such  authority  was  a  gross 
usurpation.     He  says: 

"You  seem  to  consider  the  judges  the  ultimate  arbiters 
of  all  constitutional  questions;  a  very  dangerous  doctrine 
indeed,  and  one  which  would  place  us  under  the  despotism 
of  an  oligarchy.  Our  judges  are  as  honest  as  other  men  and 
not  more  so.  They  have,  with  others,  the  same  passion 
for  party,  for  power  and  the  privilege  of  their  corps. 
Their  maxim  is  ''''honi  jitdicis  est  ampUare  jurisdictionem^'' 
and  their  power' the  more  dangerous  as  they  are  in  office 
for  life,  and  not  responsible,  as  the  other  functionaries  are, 
to  the  elective  control.  The  Constitution  has  enacted  no 
such  single  tribunal,  knowing  that  to  whatever  hands  con- 
fided, with  the  corruption  of  time  and  party  its  members 
would  become  despots."  (Yol.  Y,  page  177,  of  Jefferson's 
Correspondence. ) 

This  distinguished,  statesman  and  philosopher  further 
declares  that  the  people  themselves  are  the  only  safe  de- 
pository of  the  ultimate  powers  of  society,  and  that  in  case 
either  the  Legislative  or  Executive  functionaries  act 
unconstitutionally,  the  people  can  rectify  the  abuse  through 
the  force  of  public  opinion  and  at  the  ballot  box. 

President  Jackson  vigorously  asserted'  the  same  doctrine 
in  his  message  vetoing  the  bill  to  re-charter  the  United 
States  Bank.  The  friends  of  the  Bank  claimed  that  the 
constitutionality  of  the  measure  had  been  settled  in  their 


76  A    CALL   TO    ACTIO^^ 

favor  by  a  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court;  that  the  question 
of  expediency  alone  remained,  concerning  which  the  judg- 
ment of  Congress  must  be  held  to  be  conclusive.  The  bill 
passed  both  branches  of  Congress  by  very  decided  major- 
ities, but  met  with  a  prompt  veto  from  the  Executive  and 
failed  to  become  a  law.  Among  the  reasons  given  by 
President  Jackson  to  justify  the  Executive  action  was  the 
unconstitutionality  of  the  proposed  legislation.  As  to  the 
conclusiveness  of  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  upon 
the  question,  the  President  says:  "The  Congress,  the 
Executive  and  the  Court,  must  each  for  itself  be  guided  by 
its  own  opinion  of  the  Constitution.  *  *  *  It  is  as 
much  the  duty  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  of  the 
Senate  and  of  the  President,  to  decide  upon  the  constitu- 
tionality of  any  bill  or  resolution  which  may  be  presented 
to  them  for  passage  or  approval  as  it  is  of  the  Supreme 
Judges  when  it  may  be  brought  before  them  for  judicial 
decision.  The  opinion  of  the  Judges  has  no  more  authoritj^ 
over  Congress  than  the  opinion  of  Congress  has  over  the 
Judges;  and  on  that  point  the  President  is  independent 
of  both.  The  authority  of  the  Supreme  Court,  must  not, 
therefore,  be  permitted  to  control  the  Congress  or  the  Ex- 
ecutive, when  acting  in  their  legislative  capacity,  but  to 
have  only  such  influence  as  the  force  of  their  reasoning 
may  deserve." 

We  believe  that  Jefferson  and  Jackson  were  sound  in 
their  contention,  and  this  was  the  verdict  of  the  people 
when  they  again  elevated  General  Jackson  to  the  Presi- 
dency at  the  succeeding  election.  The  rugged  utterances 
of  these  statesmen  ring  out  to-day  like  a  startling  impeach- 
ment of  our  time.  They  comport  with  the  dictates  of 
enlightened  judgment.  There  is  enough  in  them  to  com- 
pletely transform  and  re-invigorate  our  present  suppliant 
and  helpless  state  of  public  opinion.     These  declarations 


THE    SUPREME    COURT.  77 

were  uttered  in  the  purer  days  of  the  republic  and  before 
the  various  departments  of  Government  had  seriously  felt 
the  baleful  and  seductive  influence  of  corporate  wealth  and 
power. 

Inasmuch  as  this  assumption  of  power  by  the  Court  is 
now  the  settled  doctrine,  the  necessity  for  careful  scrutiny 
on  the  part  of  the  people  touching  the  personnel  of  the 
court  and  the  tendency  of  its  decisions,  should  be  apparent 
to  all.  Children  do  not  always  inherit  the  rugged  virtues 
of  their  ancestors,  nor  does  it  follow  that  a  Court  once  dis- 
tinguished for  its  thorough  sympathy  with  human  liberty 
will  always  remain  in  like  hands. 

Protracted  and  critical  struggles  among  nations,  and 
even  between  hostile  dynasties  or  ruling  families  in  the 
same  country,  always  result  not  only  in  a  general  quicken- 
ing of  human  understanding,  but  in  developing  men  of 
unusual  genius  to  whom  is  imparted  the  Divine  gift  of 
kindling  anew  the  nobler  aspirations  of  the  race. 

The  mighty  impulse  imparted  to  parliamentary  oratory 
in  England  during  the  struggles  with  Charles  I,  the  upris- 
ing of  the  Commonwealth,  under  Cromwell,  and  the  restora- 
tion of  the  monarchy,  resulted  during  the  subsequent  reigns 
of  George  I  and  George  II,  as  we  are  informed  by  Sir 
Archibald  Alison,  in  giving  to  the  world  the  transcendant 
talents  of  Walpole,  Bolingbroke,  Pulteney  and  W\Tidliam. 
Tliis,  however,  was  but  the  twilifflit.  The  resplendent 
noontide  came  with  the  accession  of  George  III.  During 
this  reign  there  appeared  a  whole  galaxy  of  stars  who  made 
the  civilized  world  luminious  with  their  matchless  genius. 
As  one  English  writer  puts  it,  the}'  addressed  posterity  as 
well  as  their  own  contemporaries.  William  Pitt  stood  at 
the  head  of  this  group.  Next  came  his  great  rival,  Mr. 
Fox;  then  Burke,  Sheridan,  Erskine,  North,  Weddeburn, 
Thurlow,  Mansfield  and  Wilberforce.     The  new  world  felt 


78  A    CALL   TO     ACTION. 

their  power;  the  fires  of  patriotic  ambition  were  kindled  in 
America,  and  soon  there  sprang  upon  the  theater  of  action 
here  a  host  of  great  statesmen,  orators,  jurists  and  captains, 
who  astonished  the  world  by  their  genius,  inspired  it  with 
their  courage  and  enlightened  it  by  their  learning.  The 
force  of  their  character  changed  the  march  of  human  affairs. 
They  set  in  motion  a  tidal  wave  that  swept  through  all  the 
avenues  of  modern  life.  The  impetus  given  to  modern 
civilization  by  George  Washington,  John  Hancock,  John 
and  Samuel  Adams,  Thomas  Jefferson,  Patrick  Henry, 
Benjamin  Franklin,  James  Madison,  George  Mason,  Alex- 
ander Hamilton,  Robert  and  Gouveneur  Morris,  John  Jay, 
John  Marshall,  the  Pinkneys,  and  their  com-patriots,  will 
continue  to  thrill  the  hearts  and  quicken  the  courage  of 
men  as  long  as  liberty  is  loved  and  tyranny  hated.  It  is 
true  that  widely  different  schools  of  thought  and  theories 
of  Government  were  represented  among  these  men,  and 
they  differed  radically  about  many  things,  yet  the  whole 
world  must  admire  their  rugged  character  and  appreciate 
the  inestimable  value  of  their  great  services  to  mankind. 
They  possessed  the  ability  to  destroy,  and  they  startled  the 
world  by  the  use  they  made  of  it.  But  their  great  genius 
was  shown  in  their  constructive  force,  which  was  simply 
without  a  parallel. 

Let  us  now  proceed  to  other  important  considerations 
connected  with  this  Tribunal.  The  members  of  this  Court, 
as  a  rule,  must  necessaril}^  be  selected  from  among  eminent 
members  of  the  legal  profession,  actively  engaged  in  prac- 
tice, or  chosen  from  among  those  who  have  been  elevated 
to  the  District  or  Circuit  bench  or  to  judicial  positions  in  the 
States.  The  number  from  whom  the  selections  might  be 
made  is  reduced  one-half  from  party  considerations  to 
begin  with.  Hence  the  President,  with  whom  the  nominat- 
ing power  resides,  is  confined  within  ver}^  narrow  limits 


THE    SUPREME    OOUET.  <y 

when  lie  makes  his  selections,  and  he  is  still  further  re- 
stricted by  other  considerations,  which  may  hinder  or 
accelerate  confirmation  by  the  Senate. 

For  nearly  a  century  two  kindred  inspirations  held  con- 
trol of  the  legal  profession  in  America.  These  baptisms  of 
fire  antedated  our  present  structure  of  Government  and 
filled  the  whole  bar  with  an  exalted  ambition  — first,  to  be 
eminent  in  the  profession  ordained  to  aid  in  the  proper 
administration  of  justice;  and  gecond,  to  enter  the  halls  of 
legislation  where  they  might  serve  the  people  and  assist  in 
the  construction  of  a  real  Republic,  wherein  the  chief  solici- 
tude of  all  ages,  liberty,  fraternity  and  justice  among  men, 
should  be  both  practicable  and  real. 

At  last,  however,  there  came  a  falling  away,  and  the  rela- 
tion of  the  legal  profession  to  the  public  began  to  show 
signs  of  change.  We  shall  not  undertake  to  trace  the 
decline,  for  both  its  cause  and  its  history  are  within  the 
recollection  of  most  of  the  present  generation.  The  unhol}^ 
and  lawless  determination  to  acquire  wealth  and  personal 
comfort  at  the  expense  of  a  weaker  and  less  fortunate 
race,  was  the  underlying  spirit  of  slavery.  The  commer- 
cial and  political  importance  of  this  institution  soon  became 
apparent  and  prominent.  To  be  secure,  its  adherents  con- 
tended that  all  branches  of  the  Government  should  be  con- 
trolled by  the  friends  of  that  institution.  Who  will  say  that 
the  contention  was  not  logical?  Tn  fact  such  result  was 
inevitable.  It  requires  but  a  slight  acquaintance  with  the 
history  of  our  Federal  judiciary  to  enable  one  to  understand 
that  when  a  given  influence  dominates  the  Legislative  and 
Executive  branches  of  the  Government  for  any  considerable 
period,  the  judiciary,  even  when  free  from  external  intrigue, 
is  always  brought  into  harmony  with  the  influences  which 
dominate  the  other  co-ordinate  branches.  If  the  Legislative 
and  Executive  departments  are  held  by  a  viril  and  rugged 


BO  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

condition  of  public  sentiment  to  a  faithful  discharge  of  their 
duties,  the  danger  of  the  abuse  of  power  by  our  autocratic 
Court  becomes  remote.  But  all  history  shows  that  when 
evil  and  despotic  influences  control  the  former,  the  tyranny 
of  the  court  suddenly  becomes  intolerable;  and  the  more 
30,  for  the  reason  that  the  judges  are  not  subject  to  popular 
control.  The  slave  oligarchy  intrenched  itself  in  the 
Supreme  Court.  In  1860,  five  out  of  the  eight  occupants  of 
that  bench  were  from  slave  holding  States,  namely:  Wayne, 
of  Georgia;  Taney,  of  Maryland;  Catron,  of  Tennessee; 
Daniel,  of  Virginia,  and  Campbell,  of  Alabama;  and  that 
fact  had  as  much  influence,  if  not  more,  than  any  other  in 
precipitating  the  tremendous  crisis  which  followed.  The 
slave  interest  sought  to  make  the  Dred  Scott  decision  the 
rule  of  political  action  for  the  people  and  all  depart- 
ments of  the  Government.  We  need  but  glance  at  the 
great  debates  between  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Stephen  A. 
Douglass,  in  1858,  and  to  recall  the  fierce  political  combats 
which  took  place  in  every  part  of  the  land  between  that  date 
and  the  election  of  1860,  to  understand  the  truth  of  the 
above  statement.  The  people  suddenly  awoke  to  the  fact 
that  slavery  had  debauched  the  whole  Government,  includ- 
iug  the  Court  of  Last  resort.  In  his  great  speech,  delivered 
in  reply  to  Mr.  Douglass,  at  Springfield,  Illinois,  on  the 
evening  of  July  17,  1858,  Mr.  Lincoln  declared,  "That 
one-half  of  Mr.  Douglass'  onslaught,  and  one-third  of  the 
entire  plan  of  the  campaign  "  grew  out  of  the  attitude  of 
the  Supreme  Court. 

In  fine  this  tribunal  had  completely  blocked  the  way  to 
freedom  and  enjoined  the  further  march  of  civilization  in 
the  new  world.  Legislation  could  not  reach  the  difiiculty. 
Popular  elections  could  not,  for  the  reason  that  the  Court 
was  non-elective  and  held  by  the  life  tenure;  amendment 
of  the  Constitution  was  out  of  the  question,  because  of  the 


THE    SUPREME    COURT.  81 

attitude  of  the  slave-holding  states.  There  was  no  alter- 
native but  the  sword.  We  shall  not  lift  the  curtain  which 
hides  that  bloody  drama  from  the  gaze  of  the  present  gen- 
eration. Let  us  hope  that  the  atrocities  connected  with  it 
may  fade  entirely  from  the  memory  of  men  and  that  the 
good  evolved  may  flourish  and  bloom  and  fill  the  earth  with 
blessing. 

We  shall  now  proceed  to  show  that  in  the  very  midst  of 
the  struggle  for  the  overthrow  of  the  slave  oligarchy,  our 
institutions  were  assailed  by  another  foe  mightier  than  the 
former,  equally  cruel,  wider  in  its  field  of  operation,  infi- 
nitely greater  in  wealth,  and  immeasurably  more  difficult 
to  control.  It  will  be  readily  understood  that  we  allude 
to  the  sudden  growth  of  corporate  power  and  its  attendant 
consequences. 

ALARMING    CHANGE   IN   THE   SITUATION- 

Consequent  upon  the  growth  of  this  power,  the  relation  of 
the  legal  profession  to  the  people  and  to  the  administration 
of  public  justice  has  undergone  a  frightful  change  within 
the  past  twenty  years.  The  phenomenal  growth  and  exten- 
sion of  corporate  life,  followed  by  the  rapid  concentration 
of  wealth  into  a  few  hands,  has  lured  the  profession  from 
its  ancient  paths,  dampened  its  patriotic  ardor,  frozen  the 
fountains  of  its  eloquence,  and  diverted  its  attention  from 
the  ordinary  emoluments  of  a  laborious  life  and  the 
meagre  salaries  of  public  positions,  to  the  large  and  seduc- 
tive rewards  to  be  obtained  in  the  service  of  monopolies, 
corporations,  trusts,  syndicates  and  combines.  The  strong 
men  and  great  liojhts  of  the  profession  are,  to  a  large 
extent,  captured  by  these  influences  as  fast  as  they  rise 
above  the  dead  level  of  mediocrity,  and  thus  the  public 
service,  the  profession  and  the  people  are  degraded, 
while     corporate     influence     is     exalted.       It     h     well 


82  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

known  also  t'lat  very  many  universities,  law  colleges 
and  other  educational  institutions  of  note  have  promi- 
nent railroad  attorneys  employed  to  instruct  the  youth 
of  the  country  on  corporation  law,  while  many  of  our 
Chancellors  and  Regents  are  chosen  from  among  the 
same  class  of  minds.  The  dangers  arising  from  this 
state  of  affairs  are  of  the  most  serious  character,  and 
may  well  fill  the  public  mind  with  gravest  apprehension. 
The  bench,  both  State  and  National,  must  be  supplied  from 
eminent  members  of  the  bar,  and  practically  all  the 
so-called  distinguished  members  of  the  profession  are  in  the 
service  of  the  corporations.  It  does  not  necessarily  follow 
that  they  are  entitled  to  stand  at  the  head  by  natural  endow- 
ment, or  mental  and  forensic  training.  They  are  given  that 
position  and  hold  it  securely  by  the  power  of  their  clientage. 
The  names  of  this  class  of  attorneys  are  of  course  kept  con- 
stantly before  the  appointing  power.  They  are  the  Levitts 
of  the  profession,  set  apart  and  consecrated  expressly  for  ser- 
vice upon  the  Federal  Bench,  and  are  ever  looking  forward 
and  yearning  for  promotion.  How  can  we  construct  a  safe 
building  from  unsound  timber?  When  we  shall  most  need 
it  as  a  refuge  from  the  storm,  it  will  prove  to  be  our  great- 
est point  of  danger,  and  fall  upon  and  crush  us.  The 
corporations  are  not  only  able  to  employ  the  ablest  talent, 
but  to  back  their  attorneys  with  unlimited  resources.  They 
can  enable  them  to  travel  at  trifling  expense,  open  to  them 
the  columns  of  the  press,  and  grant  them  the  free  use  of  the 
telegraph  to  summon  assistance  at  the  critical  moment. 
That  these,  and  kindred  influences,  have  thus  been  enabled 
for  a  score  of  years,  to  exercise  almost  unlimited  control  over 
the  Legislative  and  Executive  branches  of  the  Government 
is  too  well  established  to  be  denied  by  intelligent  and  can- 
did men.  That  they  have  made  serious  inroads  upon  every 
branch  of  our  Judiciary,  and  are  now  stealthil}^  making  still 


THE   SUPREME   COURT.  OC 

further  and  greater  efforts  to  obtain  complete  and,  as  far 
as  this  generation  is  concerned,  permanent  control  of  oui 
Court  of  Last  resort,  is  a  truth  well  known  to  all  whose  eyes 
and  ears  are  open  to  what  is  going  on  about  them.  Indeed, 
it  is  believed  that  they  have  already  practically  accom- 
plished their  purpose. 

A  TALK   WITH   DAVID   DAVIS. 

Early  in  the  month  of  June,  1880,  and  only  a  few  days 
prior  to  the  assembling  of  the  nominating  convention  of  the 
National  party  at  Chicago,  the  Hon.  David  Davis,  Hon.  E. 
H.  Gillette,  and  the  writer,  had  a  protracted  conversation  at 
Washington,  concerning  the  political  situation.  Mr.  Davis 
was  then  a  member  of  the  United  States  Senate  from  Illi- 
nois. Previous  to  entering  that  body  he  had  served  upon 
the  Supreme  Bench  for  a  period  of  fifteen  years.  He  was 
a  conservative  man  of  great  ability,  extensive  experience 
and  wide  range  of  information.  His  opinions  on  all  ques- 
tions were  judicially  formed  and  cautiously  expressed.  In 
former  years  he  had  enjoyed  the  companionship  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  had  been  his  law  partner,  was  appointed  by  him 
in  1862  to  the  Supreme  Bench,  and  was  finally  the  exec- 
utor of  the  martyred  President's  estate.  Roscoe  Conkling, 
in  a  speech  delivered  in  the  Senate,  once  said  of  him: 

"When  the  Musselman  prays  he  turns  his  face  to  Mecca. 
When  I  speak  of  the  law  I  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to 
address  myself  to  the  most  eminent  and  learned  jurist  in 
the  Senate,  a  man  who  left  the  highest  judicial  tribunal  in 
the  world  to  give  this  body  the  honor  of  his  presence  and 
the  benefit  of  his  wisdom." 

It  was  hoped  that  Judge  Davis  would  consent  to  become 
the  candidate  of  the  third  party  for  the  Presidency,  and 
such  was  the  earnest  desire  of  Mr.  Gillette  and  the 
writer.  Mr.  Davis  was  aware  of  our  preference  for  him, 
and  the  conference  above  alluded  to  was  concernins:  that 


84  A    CALL   TO   ACTION. 

matter.  It  occurred  in  one  of  the  Committee  rooms  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  and  lasted  for  about  three  hours. 
The  Republican  convention  was  then  in  session  at  Chi- 
cago, and  the  ballottino^  was  in  procuress.  Judge  Davis 
opened  the  conversation  by  stating  that  he  felt  grateful 
for  the  mention  of  his  name  as  the  candidate  of  the 
industrial  people,  and  was  in  accord  with  most  of  their 
purposes;  but  that  he  was  not  in  a  situation  to  accept 
the  nomination  and  must  decline,  and  we  were  instructed 
to  see  that  his  name  was  not  placed  before  the  convention. 
"We  plead  with  him  to  yield,  but  without  avail.  The  matter 
of  his  candidacy  being  disposed  of,  the  Judge  proceeded  to 
state  his  views  of  the  situation.  He  said  the  people  did  not 
know,  nor  were  they  in  a  situation  to  understand  the 
extreme  perils  which  were  impending  over  the  Republic. 
"The  rapid  growth  of  corporate  power,  of  all  classes  and 
grades,"  said  he,  "and  their  corrupting  influence  at  the 
Seat  of  Government;  their  overshadowing  influence  among 
party  managers,  from  county  primaries  to  National  Conven- 
tions, fill  me  with  apprehension.  No  man  is  wise  enough 
to  foretell  what  the  end  will  be."  He  then  alluded  to  his 
long  service  upon  the  Supreme  Bench,  and  said  it  was  evi- 
dent that  the  corporations  were  maturing  their  plans  to  gain 
complete  control  of  the  Supreme  Court;  that  his  extensive 
acquaintance  with  the  great  corporation  lawyers  and'  his 
daily  contact  with  public  men  gave  him  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  what  was  going  on,  and  he  remarked,  "If  I  were 
"blind  I  could  still  hear  enough  to  alarm  me.  It  is  not 
"lawful  for  me  to  utter  many  things  which  I  have  heard, 
"because  I  get  them  in  my  private  and  confidential  rela- 
"tions  every  day;  but  this  is  my  chief  concern.  If  we  lose 
"the  Courts,  we  lose  all."  The  Judge  further  stated  that  it 
evident'y  was  the  purpose  in  certain  circles  to  overthrow 
the  Legal  Tender  decision,  tha  Thurman  Act  concerning 


THE   SUPREME   COUKT.  85 

the  Pacific  Railroads,  and  the  Grange  decisions  of  1876, 
and  that  he  felt  deeply  concerned  in  consequence.  These 
were  not  the  words  of  an  alarmist;  on  the  contrary,  they 
expressed  the  sober  judgment  of  an  eminent  statesman  and 
jurist,  who  had  been  upon  the  Supreme  Bench  himself  for 
half  a  generation. 

Let  us  now  inquire  whether  the  fears  of  Judge  Davis 
were  well  founded.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  conver- 
sation which  is  substantially  given  above,  occurred  in  June, 

1880.  Since  that  time  the  following  changes  in  the  jper- 
sonnd  of  the  court  have  taken  place:  Nathan  Clifford,  of 
Maine,  died  in  1881,  and  was  succeeded  by  Horace  Gray, 
of  Massachusetts.     Noah  H.  Swayne,  of  Ohio,  retired  in 

1881,  and  was  succeeded  by  Stanley  Matthews,  of  Ohio. 
"Ward  Hunt,  of  New  York,  retired  in  1882,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  Samuel  Blacthford,  of  New  York.  William 
Strong,  of  Pennsylvania,  resigned  in  1880,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  "W.  B.  Woods,  of  Georgia,  who  died  in  1887, 
and  was  succeeded  by  L.  Q.  C.  Lamar,  of  Mississippi. 
Chief  Justice  Waite,  of  Ohio,  died  in  1888,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  Chief  Justice  Fuller,  of  Illinois.  Stanley  Mat- 
thews, of  Ohio,  died  in  1889,  and  was  succeeded  by  David 
Brewer,  of  Kansas.  Justice  Miller,  of  Iowa,  died  in  1890, 
and  was  succeeded  by  Mr.  Justice  Brown,  of  Michigan. 
We  wish  it  clearly  understood  that  we  do  not  call  in  ques- 
tion, in  the  slightest  degree,  either  the  personal  or  official 
integrity  of  the  members  of  this  important  tribunal.  In  its 
personnel,  the  old  court  of  ante-hellmn  days  was  beyond 
reproach.  No  one  has  ever  seriously  questioned  that  fact. 
And  yet  we  all  now  know  that  they  were  as  clay  in  the 
hands  of  the  potter,  and  were  moulded  at  will  by  the  slave 
power.  The  professional  life  of  the  members  of  that  court 
liad  budded,  grown  and  ripened  under  the  transforming  but 
baleful   influence  of  slavery.      When   they  reached  their 


86  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

exalted  position  upon  the  bench  their  perverted  judgment 
and  misguided  conscience  united  to  impel  them  to  block 
the  way  of  freedom.  The  sword  came  and  emancipated 
both  the  slave  and  the  Court.  The  American  people  are 
now  passing  through  a  similar  experience.  The  patronage, 
influence  and  power  of  the  slave  oligarchy  were  mere  trifles 
compared  with  the  corporate  dominion  of  the  present  day. 
The  social,  political  and  financial  strength  of  the  corpora- 
tions unite  to  make  their  influence  infinitely  greater  in  Amer- 
ican society  than  that  of  the  slave  power  ever  was,  even  in 
the  days  of  its  greatest  ascendency.  The  corporation  has  sub- 
merged the  whole  country  and  swept  everything  before  it. 
In  the  glacial  period,  geologists  tell  us,  the  icebergs  lifted 
the  solid  granite  boulders  from  their  resting  places  in  the 
north,  bore  them  southward  and  dropped  them  upon  what 
are  now  our  western  prairies,  where  they  will  forever 
remain  as  monuments  of  the  elemental  conflicts  of  that  far 
off  age.  The  deep  lines  and  scratches  across  their  faces  tell 
us  the  course  of  the  current  which  submergec^  and  carried 
them  away.  They  were  borne  along  by  superior  force. 
Tfiey  were  finall}'-  released  when  the  ice  melted  beneath  the 
genial  rays  of  the  sun.  The  corporation  glacier  is  now 
sweeping  over  this  country  and  lifting  out  of  place  the 
solid  granite  of  our  Judiciary  and  threatening  to  carry 
away  the  very  pillars  of  the  Kepublic.  But  the  light  of 
unclouded  public  opinion  is  shining  full  orbed  upon  the  sit- 
uation, and  ere  long,  it  is  hoped,  the  iceberg  will  melt 
under  the  fervent  heat  of  well  directed  investigation  and 
our  great  Court  be  permitted  to  settle  back  upon  the  pedestal 
of  the  Constitution,  to  remain  forever  as  the  hope  and 
refuge  of  the  people. 

The  election  of  Mr.  Garfield  took  place  in  J^ovember,  1880. 
On  the  26th  day  of  January  following  President  Hayes 
sent  to  the  Senate  the  name  of  .Stanley  Matthews,  of  Ohio, 


THE   SUPREME   COURT.  87 

for  Associate  Justice,  to  succeed  Noah  H.  Swayne,  retired. 
As  Mr.  Matthews  was  known  to  be  a  prominent  corpora- 
tion lawyer,  the  appointment  was  a  sudden  surprise  to  the 
country,  and  met  with  strong  opposition  in  the  Senate  and 
very  damaging  criticism  elsewhere.  Many  of  the  leading 
anti-monopoly  journals  openly  characterized  the  appoint- 
ment as  a  shameful  disregard  of  public  opinion  and  a  gross 
betrayal  of  the  people.  Mr.  Matthews,  while  filling  the  unex- 
pired term  of  Mr.  Sherman  in  the  Senate  had,  with  great 
skill  and  adroitness,  opposed  the  passage  of  the  Thurman  act, 
touching  the  Pacific  railroad  indebtedness,  on  the  ground,  as 
he  claimed,  of  its  repugnance  to  the  Constitution.  The  oppo- 
sition to  tliis  appointment  was  led  in  the  Senate  by  David 
Davis,  Allen  G.  Thurman,  Mr.  Edmunds,  and  General 
Logan.  It  is  understood,  however,  that  Mr.  Edmunds' 
opposition  was  caused  by  his  desire  to  secure  the  appoint- 
ment for  a  friend  in  his  own  State.  The  friends  of  Mr. 
Matthews  were  not  strong  enough  to  force  confirmation. 
Senators  Ingalls  and  Lamar  were  the  only  members  of  the 
Judiciary  Committee  who  favored  it.  The  nomination 
lapsed.  Then  came  the  inauguration  of  Mr.  Garfield,  fol- 
lowed by  the  usual  extraordinary  session  of  the  Senate 
On  the  12th  of  March  the  newly  installed  President  again 
sent  to  the  Senate  the  name  of  Mr.  Matthews.  Senators 
Davis,  Thurman  and  Logan  were  still  firm  in  their  opposi- 
tion. Protracted  delay  followed,  an(^  confirmation  seemed 
for  a  while  decidedly  doubtful.  Finally,  after  much  delay, 
on  the  12th  day  of  May,  just  sixty  days  after  the  name  of 
Mr.  Matthews  had  been  sent  in  for  the  second  time,  he  was 
confirmed  by  a  vote  of  22  yeas,  21  nays.  The  public 
prints  were  full  of  uncomplimentary  statements  concerning 
methods  made  use  of  to  secure  confirmation,  but  it  is  foreign 
to  our  purpose  to  reproduce  them  here.  "We  shall  not  stop 
to  question  either  the  moti^^es  of  the  t^o  Presidents  or  the 


88  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

Integrity  of  the  appointee.  The  point  we  insist  upon  is 
this :  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Matthews  was  in  defiance  of 
public  opinion.  This  was  clearly  shown  by  the  protest 
which  followed  and  by  the  fact  that  it  was  at  first  practically 
rejected  by  the  Senate.  And  we  submit  in  all  candor,  that 
after  the  nomination  had  once  lapsed  in  the  face  of  the 
great  popular  opposition  which  it  had  evoked,  proper  defer- 
ence to  the  well  defined  state  of  public  opinion  should  have 
prevented  the  incoming  President  from  again  forcing  the 
nomination  upon  the  Senate  and  the  country.  This  is  a 
representative  case,  and  it  affords  the  reader  a  clear  view  of 
the  infiuences  which  shape  and  control  the  most  important 
affairs  of  our  Republic.  It  is  clear  that  there  is  some  power 
in  this  country  which  is  above  the  Government  and  more 
authoritative  than  public  opinion,  and  which  can  exert 
itself  successfully  at  critical  moments  in  high  places.  A 
child  can  tell  what  that  power  is.  It  is  the  omnipresent, 
omnipotent  corporation.  It  is  the  same  old  malevolent, 
insidious  influence  of  organized  oligarchy — of  plutocratic 
power — and  it  is  now  asserting  itself  for  the  second  time 
■  within  the  memory  of  the  present  generation.  The  pirate 
plunders  bj''  violence.  The  burglar  enters  your  house  pre- 
pared to  take  life  if  he  cannot  otherwise  escape.  But  the 
corporation  plunders  by  the  permission  or  through  the 
agency  of  the  State,  and  to  cut  off  all  hope  of  redress  they 
seize  upon  the  courts,  which  constitute  the  only  hope  and 
refuge  of  an  oppressed  people  this  side  of  revolution. 
Organized  wrong  understands  well  the  value  of  the  courts 
of  a  country,  and  particularly  of  the  Courts  of  last  resort. 
Hence  they  look  well  to  the  appointing  power.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  people  seem  to  be  unmindful  of  everything 
pertaining  to  their  welfare,  and  they  suffer  uncomplain- 
ingly until  peaceful  redress  becomes  well  nigh  impossible. 
The  old  Court,  under  the  influence  of  the  oligarchy  of  that 


THE   SUPREME   COURT.  89 

day,  went  to  the  extreme  of  deciding,  in  effect,  that  the 
Constitution  was  a  skillfully  constructed  web  of  clanking 
slave  chains,  rather  than  a  bristling  panoply  of  freedom. 
But  an  obsequious  Judiciary  and  a  perverted  Constitution 
could  not,  at  that  time,  stay  the  onward  march  of  freedom 
nor  hold  even  a  weak  and  disfranchised  race  in  bondage. 
And  should  the  new  Court  encounter  the  storm  center  of 
public  opinion,  now  rapidly  forming,  it  will  be  as  chaff 
before  the  gale. 

A  DECISION  REVERSED 

On  the  22d  day  of  March,  188T,  Mr.  Lamar,  then  Secre- 
tary of  the  Interior,  directed  the  Commissioner  of  the  Gen- 
eral Land  OflBce,  Gen.  Sparks,  to  cause  a  grant  of  land 
in  Wisconsin,  made  to  the  Chicago,  St.  Paul,  Minneapolis 
&  Omaha  Kailwaj^,  and  its  branch  line,  to  be  adjusted ; 
and  further  directed  the  Commissioner  to  transmit  to  the 
Secretary  for  approval,  proper  lists  of  lands  selected  b}' 
said  Company  as  indemnity  lands,  in  lieu  of  lands  which 
had  been  granted  to  them,  but  of  which  they  had  been 
deprived  by  the  act  of  the  Government.  This  was  provided 
for  in  the  grant. 

The  original  act  granting  lands  to  this  Company  was 
passed  in  1856,  and  granted  six  alternate  sections  to  the 
mile  on  each  side  of  the  road.  The  act  of  May  5,  1864, 
increased  the  grant  to  ten  sections  per  mile.  The  acts 
provided  in  substance,  that  if  the  Government  had,  prior 
to  the  passage  of  .this  grant  to  the  railroads,  disposed  of  any 
of  the  lands  embraced  within  the  limits  of  this  grant,  said 
lands  were  to  be  excluded  from  the  operation  of  the  act 
except  as  to  right  of  way,  and  should  not  be  affected  by  it, 
but  remain  as  though  no  grant  had  ever  been  made.  The 
task  before  the  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office 
seemed  easy  enough.     For  all  lands  of  which  the  railroad 


90  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

had  been  deprived  by  act  of  the  Government,  between  the 
date  of  the  grant  and  the  definite  location  of  the  line  of  the 
road,  they  were  to  be  allowed  to  select  other  lands.  For 
lands  which  the  Government  had  disposed  of  before*  Con- 
gress made  the  grant,  they  could  not  have  other  lands. 
The  Supreme  Court,  in  an  able  opinion  delivered  by  David 
Davis,  in  the  Leavenworth,  Lawrence  &  Galveston,  R.  R. 
92  U.  S.,  733,  had  held  in  1875,  that  the  road  could  not 
have  indemnity  for  lands  which  had  been  disposed  of  prior 
to  the  date  of  the  grant,  and  which  were  excluded  from  the 
grant  by  the  terms  thereof.  '  With  this  decision  and  the 
granting  act  before  him,  Gen.  Sparks  proceeded  to  adjust 
this  Wisconsin  grant.  He  found  that  the  Government 
had,  prior  to  the  date  of  the  grant  to  the  railroad  company, 
appropriated  about  seventy-four  thousand  acres  embraced 
within  the  limits  of  the  grant.  He  very  properly  held  that 
inasmuch  as  these  seventy-four  thousand  acres  had  never 
been  given  to  the  corporation,  but  on  the  contrary,  had  at 
a  prior  date  been  set  apart  for  other  purposes,  the  cor- 
poration was  not  entitled  to  indemnity.  Having  never 
been  granted,  there  had  been  no  loss  ;  and  having  been  no 
loss  there  could  be  no  indemnity.  The  adjustment  and 
list  were  duly  certified  to  Secretary  Lamar  for  his  approval. 
The  Secretary  promptly  reversed  the  decision  of  the  Com- 
missioner and  held  that  the  corporation  was  entitled  to 
select  indemnity  lands,  in  lieu  of  the  seventy-four  thousand 
acres  with  which  the  Government  had  parted  prior  to  the 
passage  of  the  act,  and  in  his  decision  he  stated  that  the 
opinion  of  the  Supreme  Court,  before  referred  to,  as  deliv- 
ered by  David  Davis,  in  the  L.  L.  &  G,  case,  had  been 
overruled,  and  that  if  it  had  not  been  overruled  it  was  dic- 
tum. A  subsequent  decision  in  what  is  known  as  the  Bar- 
ney case,  113  U.  S.,  618,  was  referred  to  as  authority  for 
his  ruling. 


THE    SUPKEMB   COURT.  91 

The  two  cases  were  radically  different  as  to  the  questions 
of  law  and  fact  involved.  It  is  a  notable  fact  that  Field, 
Swayne  and  Strong  had  dissented  from  the  opinion  of  the 
Court  in  the  L.  L.  &  G.  case,  and  that  Field  delivered  the 
opinion  in  the  Barney  case.  It  is  evident  therefore  that 
Secretary  Lamar  regarded  Judge  Davis'  majority  opinion 
as  unsound,  and  the  dissenting  opinion  of  Justice  Field  as 
the  correct  statement  of  the  law.    ' 

This  difference  of  opinion  concerning  the  proper  con- 
struction of  the  law  applicable  to  the  Wisconsin  case  led  to 
a  misunderstarding  between'  Secretary  Lamar  and  Mr. 
Sparks,  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office,  which 
caused  the  latter  to  resign.  Their  respective  views  of  the 
law  were  irreconcilable. 

Shortly  after  Congress  convened  in  December,  1887,  the 
President  nominated  Mr.  Lamar  as  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  to  succeed  Justice  Woods,  of  Georgia,  deceased,  and 
he  was  accordingly,  after  considerable  delay,  confirmed  by 
the  Senate.  Mr.  Lamar,  during  the  pendency  of  his  nom- 
ination in  the  Senate,  resigned  as  Secretary  of  the  Interior. 
But  before  doing  so  removed  from  office  Mr.  J.  W.  Le- 
Barnes,  the  Law  Clerk  of  the  Department,  who  concurred 
in  General  Sparks'  opinion  of  the  law  in  the  case  above 
named.  We  do  not  call  in  question  the  good  faith  of  Mr. 
Lamar,  nor  the  motives  of  the  President  in  making  the 
appointment-  But  here  was  a  grave  public  question,  con- 
cerning which  the  members  of  the  Supreme  Court  were 
themselves  at  variance.  The  land  grant  companies  were 
interested  in  securing  the  appointment  of  a  member  of  the 
Court  whose  construction  of  the  law  would  give  them  the 
largest  amount  of  land.  The  people  were  interested  in  hav- 
ing Judge  Davis'  decision,  which  construed  the  grants 
strictly,  sustained. 

Let  us  notice  for  a  moment  the  magnitude  of  this  single 


92  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

victory  over  the  people.  First,  the  railroad  company 
secured  seventy-four  thousand  acres  of  land  more  than  the 
Commissioner  thought  they  were  entitled  *x> ;  second,  they 
secured  the  removal  of  the  Commissioner  of  the  General 
Land  OflBce,  whose  brusk  honesty  brought  him  into  conflict 
with  their  nefarious  schemes ;  third,  they  secured  the 
removal  of  Law  Clerk,  LeBarnes,  who  was  a  serious 
obstacle  in  their  way ;  fourth,  they  overthrew  the  David 
Davis  decision  in  the  L.  L.  &  G.  case,  and  secured  the 
adoption  of  a  rule,  which,  when  applied  to  all  other  grants, 
as  it  has  since  steadily  been,  gives  them  probably  ten  mil- 
lion acres  more  than  they  could  have  obtained  under  the 
old  rule.  These  ten  million  acres  are  worth  to  them  at  least 
one  hundred  million  dollars. 

While  the  confirmation  of  the  ex-Secretary  was  hanging 
fire  in  the  Senate,  as  we  are  informed  by  Gen.  Sparks,  the 
force  in  the  railroad  division  of  the  General  Land  Office 
was  kept  busy,  almost  day  and  night,  issuing  patents  for 
the  lands  covered  by  this  decision  ;  and  the  lady  who  signs 
the  President's  name  to  the  patents  was  sent  for  after  night 
to  affix  the  Executive  signature  to  the  patents  which  con- 
veyed this  land  to  the  railroads.  This  episode  illustrates 
with  tremendous  force  the  danger  inherent  in  the  method  of 
selecting  the  members  of  this  great  Court. 

Reader,  I  think  you  will  agree  with  us  that  David  Davis 
had  an  accurate  understanding  of  what  was  going  on ! 

A  LOOK  AHEAD. 

The  members  of  this  tribunal  whose  terms  are  likely 
to  extend  into  the  future  for  a  considerable  period  are  : 

Chief  Justice  Fuller,  aged  57,  appointed  1888. 
Justice  Harlan,  aged  57,  appointed  1877. 
Justice  Gray,  aged  62,  appointed  1881. 
Justice  Lamar,  aged  65,  appointed  1888. 
Justice  Brewer,  aged  54,  appointed  1890. 
Justice  Brown,  aged  55,  appointed  1891. 


THE   SUPREME   COURT.  93 

The  other  members  Lave  already  reached  that  age  in 
life  (70)  and  have  served  the  period  (10  years)  which 
entitles  them  to  retire  on  full  pay,  to-wit: 

Justice  Field,  aged  74,  appointed  1863. 
Justice  Bradley,  aged  76,  appointed  1870. 
Justice  Blatchford,  aged  70,  appointed  1882. 

In  the  natural  course  of  human  life  and  strength,  it  may 
be  calculated  with  certainty  that  the  three  Associate  Jus- 
tices last  named,  have  but  a  brief  period  of  service  before 
them.  Their  time  is  limited  by  a  decree  that  is  final,  and 
cannot  be  reversed.  It  is  then  among  the  certainties  of 
the  future  tliat  the  present  administration  and  the  one  to 
immediately  follow — most  likely  the  former — will  be 
called  upon  to  choose  at  least  three  new  members  of  the 
Supreme  Bench.  In  view  of  the  important  issues  which 
are  now  agitating  the  public  mind,  the  certainty  of  an 
early  re-construction  of  the  Court  brings  the  Republic 
to  the  very  brink  of  an  absorbing  crisis,  the  importance  of 
which  can  not  be  over-estimated.  When,  in  the  last  great 
juncture,  the  public  mind  came  to  realize  that  the  Supreme 
Court  had  been  completely  subjugated  by  the  slave  power, 
troublous  times  were  near  at  hand.  When  the  Court 
succumbed,  freedom  felt  that  she  had  lost  her  last  citadel 
and  was  compelled  to  fall  back  upon  the  people  for  safety. 
But  the  present  peril  is  infinitely  greater  than  the  former. 
Slavery  was  restricted  within  narrow  geographical  limits 
and  the  visible  manifestations  of  the  evil  were  repulsive 
and  hateful  to  all  who  were  removed  from  its  immediate 
influence.  Not  so  with  the  present  foe  of  justice  and  social 
order.  It  assails  the  rights  of  man  under  the  most  seduct- 
ive guise.  You  meet  it  in  every  walk  of  life.  It  speaks 
through  the  press,  gives  zeal  and  eloquence  to  the  bar, 
engrosses  the  constant  attention  of  the  bench,  organizes 
the  influences  which  surround  our  legislative  bodies  and 


94  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

courts  of  justice,  designates  who  shall  be  the  Eegents  and 
Chancellors  in  our  leading  Universities,  determines  who 
shall  be  our  Senators,  how  our  legislatures  shall  be  organ- 
ized, who  shall  preside  over  them  and  who  constitute  the 
important  committees.  It  is  imperial  in  political  caucases, 
without  a  rival  in  social  circles,  endows  institutions  of 
learning,  is  in  daily  contact  with  all  important  business 
interests,  disburses  monthly  large  sums  of  money  to  an 
army  of  employes,  has  unlimited  resources  of  ready  cash, 
is  expert  in  political  intrigue  and  pervades  every  commun- 
ity from  the  center  to  the  circumference  of  the  Republic. 

THE    ALARM. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  decisions  of  the  Court 
upon  the  so-called  "Granger  Laws"  of  Iowa,  Illinois  and 
Wisconsin  were  delivered  in  1876.  In  these  opinions  the 
majority  of  the  Court  sustained  the  power  of  State  Legisla- 
tures to  prescribe  maximum  rates  of  charges  for  the  trans- 
portation of  freight  and  passengers  on  the  various  roads 
within  these  States.  (See  the  Chicago,  Burlington  & 
Quincy  Railroad  Company  m.  Iowa,  94  TJ.  S.,  155;  Chi- 
cago, Milwaukee  &  St.  Paul  Railway  Company  vs,  Ackley, 
94  U.  S. ,  179 ;  Peik  vs.  Chicago  &  Northwestern  Railway 
Company,  and  Lawrence  vs.  same  company,  94  U.  S.,  164, 
Field  and  Strong  dissenting. )  These  cases  were  all  argued 
at  the  same  time,  presented  the  same  questions  and  were 
decided  at  the  same  term.  The  questions  of  the  right  of 
the  State  to  regulate  the  rates  of  fares  and  tolls  on  rail- 
roads, and  how  far  that  right  is  affected  by  the  com- 
merce clause  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  were 
presented  to  the  Court.  It  was  ably  and  confidently  con- 
tended by  Hon,  William  M.  Evarts,  John  W.  Cary  and 
associate  counsel  for  plaintiffs  in  error,  that  the  laws  of 
Iowa,  Wisconsin,  Illinois  and  Minnesota  were  void  for  two 
reasons : 


THE    SUPREME   COURT.  95 

Firsi — They  were  in  violation  of  that  clause  in  the  Fed- 
eral Constitution  which  forbids  a  State  to  pass  any  law 
impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts,  and  also  in  violation 
of  that  clause  which  forbids  a  State  to  pass  any  law  which 
deprives  any  person  of  his  property  without  due  process  of 
law.  That  in  view  of  these  provisions  of  the  fundamental 
law,  the  question  of  what  is  a  reasonable  compensation  for 
the  transportation  of  passengers  or  freight  is  one  calling  for 
judicial  determination  and  cannot  be  settled  by  the  Legist 
lature. 

Second — That  the  State  statutes  in  question  attempted  to 
regulate  inter-state  commerce,  and  for  that  reason  were 
unconstitutional,  being  in  conflict  with  the  commerce  clause 
of  the  Constitution. 

The  opinion  in  these  cases  was  by  Chief  Justice  Waite. 
In  the  case  of  the  Chicago,  Burlington  &  Quincy  Eailroad 
Company  ^'s.  Iowa,  supra,  the  Chief  Justice  says:  "Rail- 
road companies  are  carriers  for  hire.  They  are  incorporated 
as  such,  and  given  extraordinary  powers,  in  order  that  they 
may  better  serve  the  public  in  that  capacity.  They  are, 
therefore,  engaged  in  a  public  employment  affecting  the 
public  interests,  and  *  *  *  subject  to  Legislative 
control  as  to  their  rates  of  fare  and  freight,  unless  protected 
by  their  charters."  In  Peik  vs.  C,  B.  &  Q.  Ry.,  94  U.  S., 
page  1Y8,  the  Chief  Justice  uses  the  following  language : 
"Where  the  property  has  been  clothed  with  a  public  inter- 
est, the  Legislature  may  fix  a  limit  to  that  which  shall  in 
law  be  reasonable  for  its  use.  This  limit  binds  tlie  Court  as 
well  as  the  people.  If  it  has  been  improperly  fixed,  the 
Legislature,  not  the  courts,  must  be  appealed  to  for  the 
change." 

In  the  case  of  the  C.  M.  &  St.  P.  m.  Ackley,  supra,  the 
Chief  Justice  says:  "The  only  question  presented  by  this 
record  is  whether  a  railroad   company  in  Wisconsin  can 


96  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

recover  for  the  transportation  of  property  more  than  the 
maximum  fixed  by  the  Act  of  March  11,  1874,  by  showing 
that  the  amount  charged  was  no  more  than  a  reasonable 
compensation  for  the  services  rendered.  *  *  *  As 
between  the  company  and  the  freighter  there  is  a  statutory 
limitation  of  the  charge  for  the  transportation  actually  per- 
formed. The  limit  of  the  recovery  is  that  prescribed  by 
the  statute." 

There  was  still  another  decision  in  Munn  &  Scott  vs. 
Illinois,  94  IT.  S.,  113,  which  establishes  the  doctrine  that 
a  state  may  constitutionally  prescribe  elevator  charges  for 
the  storage  of  grain,  notwithstanding  they  are  used  by 
those  engaged  in  inter- state  as  well  as  state  commerce.  In 
these  instances  the  state  had  fixed  the  maximum  rates  and 
had  forbidden  the  roads  and  the  owners  of  the  elevators  to 
charge  more  under  penalty.  The  court  declared  the  laws 
to  be  in  harmony  with  the  constitution.  The  railroads  con- 
tended earnestly  that  the  question  whether  certain  rates 
fixed  by  them  were  reasonable  or  excessive,  was  a  question 
of  fact  which  could  not  be  settled  by  legislation  but  must 
be  determined  by  the  courts  after  judicial  investigation  had 
in  conformity  with  the  constitution  which  declares  that  no 
person  shall  be  deprived  of  his  property  without  due  pro- 
cess of  law.  But  the  majority  of  the  court,  as  we  have 
seen,  held  that  the  interest  was  of  a  public  nature  and  that 
this  clause  of  the  constitution  did  not  apply. 

When  these  opinions  were  announced  by  the  majority  of 
the  court,  Mr.  Justice  Field  filed  a  dissenting  opinion  for 
himself  and  Justice  Strong,  in  which,  speaking  of  the  decis- 
ion of  the  majority,  he  says: 

"That  decision  in  its  wide  sweep,  practically  destroys  all 
of  the  guaranties  of  the  Constitution  and  of  the  common 
law  invoked  by  counsel  for  the  protection  of  the  rights  of 
railroad  companies.     Of  what  avail  is  the  Constitutional 


THE    SUPREME   COURT.  97 

provision  that  no  State  shall  deprive  any  person  of  his 
property  except  by  due  process  of  law,  if  the  State  can,  by 
fixing  the  compensation  which  he  may  receive  for  its  use, 
take  from  him  all  that  is  valuable  in  the  property?  To 
what  purpose  can  the  constitutional  prohibition  upon  the 
State  against  impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts  be 
invoked,  if  the  State  can  in  the  face  of  a  charter  authorizing 
a  company  to  charge  reasonable  rates,  prescribe  what  shall 
be  deemed  reasonable  for  services  rendered  ?  That  decision 
will  justify  the  legislature  in  fixing  the  price  of  all  articles 
and  fixing  the  compensation  for  all  services.  It  sanctions 
intermeddling  with  all  business  and  pursuits  and  property 
in  the  community,  leaving  the  use  and  enjoyment  of  prop- 
erty and  the  compensation  for  its  use  to  the  discretion  of 
the  legislature." 

These  decisions  were  all  by  a  divided  court.  Only  one 
of  the  judges  who  concurred  in  the  majority  opinion 
(Judge  Bradley)  is  now  upon  the  bench;  seven  of  the  pres- 
ent members  having  been  appointed  since  that  time.  Will 
any  sane  man  believe  for  one  moment  that  the  corporations 
were  asleep  while  this  court  was  being  reconstructed?  Not 
a  single  appointee  escaped  their  scrutiny.  They  watch  the 
tottering  frames  of  the  members  of  this  tribunal  with  a 
solicitude  equal  to  that  which  animates  the  unfilial  spend- 
thrift who  feels  hampered  by  the  longevity  of  his  rich 
progenitor. 

Mr.  John  W.  Gary,  of  Milwaukee,  who  is  general  at- 
torney for  the  C,  M.  &  St.  P.  Railroad,  represented  that 
company  in  the  Ackley  case  and  was  deeply  disappointed 
in  the  decision  of  the  court.  In  an  article  published  over 
his  own  signature  in  the  Daily  Sentinel  of  Milwaukee, 
March  5,  1888,  twelve  years  after  these  important  decisions 
were  rendered,  he  boldly  asserts  that  the  '"Granger"  decis- 
ions must  be  overthrown,  and  exults  that  there  were  at  the 
date  of  his  letter  but  four  judges  (there  were  but  three) 
upon  the  bench  who  participated  in  them.    There  is  now 


98  A    CALL    TO    ACTION. 

but  one.  In  these  utterances  he  doubtless  voiced  the 
wishes  of  the  whole  array  of  corporation  magnates  and 
their  host  of  legal  advisers  throughout  the  Union.  Mr. 
Gary  was  well  aware  that  they  had,  except  as  to  the  power 
of  state  Legislatures  to  fix  maximum  rates  for  purely  state 
traffic,  already  been  overthrown  in  the  Wabash  case.  He 
knew  too  that  other  cases  were  then  in  preparation  which 
would  sweep  away  the  last  vestage  of  these  decisions.  It 
was  Mr.  Gary's  knowledge  of  the  movements  in  corpora- 
tion circles  which  enabled  him  to  asssume  the  role  of  the 
prophet.  Of  course  he  was  not  speaking  for  himself 
but  for  his  masters.  It  was  not  the  voice  of  a  man 
and  a  citizen,  but  it  was  a  vengeful  proclamation  of  war 
against  an  unsuspecting  people  who  were  fondly  dreaming 
that  since  their  great  Gourt  had  spoken  in  the  "Grange" 
decisions  their  rights  were  secure  and  that  these  great 
questions  were  forever  settled.  But  Mr.  Gary  and  his 
clients  were  looking  forward  to  a  change  in  the  personnel  of 
the  Gourt  through  the  visitations  of  time  and  the  ravages  of 
death.  They  had  been  vanquished  but  not  conquered. 
They  proposed  to  transfer  the  battle  to  the  future  and  to 
trust  for  final  victory  through  an  insidious,  quiet  and 
treacherous  reformation  of  the  Gourt.  By  referring  to  the 
sub-division  of  this  chapter  entitled  "Instability  of  Judicial 
Opinion  and  the  Resulting  Evils,"  the  reader  will  learn 
how  far  the  vengeful  prediction  of  Mr.  Gary  has  been 
verified. 

THE   THUKMAN    ACT. 

The  act  of  congress,  known  as  the  "Thurman  Act," 
approved  May  7th,  1878  (20  stat.,  56),  required  the  Union 
Pacific  Railroad  Gompany,  in  the  management  of  its 
affairs,  to  set  aside  a  portion  of  its  current  income  as  a 
sinking  fund  to  meet  the  mortgage  debts  of  the  company, 


THE    SUPREME   COURT,  99 

when  they  mature.  Included  among  these  debts  is  the 
second  mortgage  lien  held  by  the  United  States,  which  now 
amounts  to  about  $130,000,000,  The  law  was  finally 
assailed  by  the  railroad  interests  as  being  unconstitutional, 
in  that  it  deprived  the  company  of  its  property  without 
due  process  of  law,  and  was  an  unwarranted  interference 
with  vested  rights. 

Cases  were  hurriedly  prepared  for  the  Court  of  claims 
and  in  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  dis- 
trict of  California.  On  appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court  they 
were  advanced  to  a  speedy  hearing.  In  October,  1878,  the 
Court  declared  the  act  constitutional.  (99  U.  S.,  700.)  But 
the  judges  were  divided  in  opinion.  Five  of  them  upheld 
the  law,  while  Justices  Field,  Strong  and  Bradley  dissented. 
Chief  Justice  Fuller  now  occupies  the  place  then  held  by 
Waite,  Justice  Lamar  that  held  by  Strong,  Justice  Brewer 
the  seat  then  occupied  by  Judge  Swayne,  and  Justice 
Brown  that  held  by  Miller. 

Justice  Lamar  served  in  the  Senate  with  Stanley  Matthews, 
was  aware  of  his  hostility  to  the  Thurman  Act  on  the 
ground  of  its  alleged  unconstitutionality,  and  notwithstand- 
ing that  fact  he  was  ardently  in  favor  of  the  confirmation 
of  Mr.  Mathews,  by  the  Senate,  and  stood  by  him  in  the 
committee  and  on  the  floor  until  the  contest  reached  a 
favorable  termination.  It  is  fair  to  conclude  that  he  shared 
Mr.  Mathews',  opinions  concerning  the  Thurman  Act. 
Chief  Justice  Fuller's  opinion  upon  the  subject  must  be  left 
to  conjecture.  Justice  Brewer  succeeds  Matthews  and  is  a 
nephew  of  Justice  Field.  It  is  quite  safe  to  assume  that 
the  dissenting  judges  have  not  lost  in  numbers  by  the  late 
appointments. 

Knowing  that  the  corporations  were  exceedingly  watch- 
ful, active  and  persistent  when  Matthews  was  appointed,  it 
is  but  fair  to  conclude  that  all  the  late  appointments  met 


100  A    CALL   TO   ACTION. 

with  closest  scrutiny  in  corporation  circles  long  before  the 
public  even  heard  that  their  appointment  was  contemplated. 
The  overthrow  of  the  Thurman  Act  is  as  important  to- 
day to  the  parties  who  then  desired  it  as  it  was  when  first 
enacted,  or  when  Matthews  was  appointed.  There  is  not 
the  slightest  evidence  of  a  relaxed  purpose  or  effort  in  this 
refpect. 

We  cannot  better  illustrate  the  stealthy  intrigue  con- 
stantly employed  bj'-  corporate  interests  to  control  every 
branch  of  our  Federal  judiciary,  than  by  calling  to  mind 
some  events  which  have  taken  place  during  the  past  ten 
years  within  the  Eighth  Judicial  Circuit,  which  is  made  up 
of  the  districts  of  Minnesota,  Iowa,  Missouri,  Kansas, 
Arkansas,  Nebraska  and  Colorado.  In  the  year  1869, 
Judge  John  F.  Dillon,  of  Iowa,  was  appointed  for  this 
circuit.  He  served  ten  years  and  resigned,  ostensibly  to 
accept  position  as  professor  of  Real  Estate  and  Equity 
Jurisprudence  in  the  Columbia  law  school,  but  really  to 
accept  the  position  of  chief  counsellor  of  the  Union  Pacific 
railroad,  with  his  office  at  Boston.  A  number  of  appli- 
cants sprang  up  of  course,  for  the  vacancy,  but  the  contest 
soon  narrowed  down  to  Judge  Brewer,  of  Kansas,  and  the 
Hon.  George  W.  McCrary,  of  Iowa,  then  Secretary  of  "War 
in  the  cabinet  of  President  Hayes.  Justice  Miller  and  the 
Iowa  delegation  in  Congress  strongly  urged  the  appoint- 
ment of  McCrary,  while  Justice  Field,  backed  by  strongly 
organized  influence,  was  active  for  his  nephew.  Judge 
Brewer.  Judge  Brewer's  mother  was  a  sister  of  Justice 
Field,  and  her  distinguished  son  was  born  abroad  while  the 
parents  were  temporarily  absent  from  the  United  States. 
The  contest  became  animated  to  such  an  extent  that  the 
relations  between  Justices  Field  and  Miller  became  some- 
what strained.  McCrary,  however,  was  appointed  and 
confirmed. 


THE   SUPKEME   COURT.  101 

McCraiy  was  a  splendid  type  of  American  manhood. 
He  rose  to  fame  and  position  upon  his  own  inate  ability, 
rugged  character  and  acknowledged  integrity.  His  sympa- 
thies were  all  with  the  poor,  the  lowly  and  the  oppressed. 
He  was  gnarly  timber  for  the  corporations  to  operate  upon. 
His  keen  insight  and  breadth  of  mind  carried  him  directly 
to  the  marrow  of  every  question  which  he  undertook  to 
investigate ;  and  after  he  had  applied  his  powers  of  analysis 
to  the  matter  in  hand,  there  was  little  room  left  for  contro- 
versy. The  new  appointee  was  far  from  satisfactory  to  the 
corporations.  As  Judges,  Dillon  and  McCrary  were  not 
satisfactory  to  the  corporation  magnates. 

Judge  McCrary  served  about  three  years  and  resigned 
to  take  employment  as  general  consulting  counsel  for 
the  Atchison,  Topeka  &  Santa  Fe  Railway  Company, 
with  a  liberal  salary,  compared  with  that  which  he  received 
as  Circuit  Judge.  The  contract  ran  for  five  years,  and  he 
was  located  at  Kansas  City.  The  transaction  provoked 
very  considerable  comment  in  professional  circles  at  the 
time,  but  its  significance  did  not  attract  general  public 
attention.  How  remarkable  that  these  Judges,  serving 
from  the  same  State ;  one  the  successor  of  the  other  in  the 
same  circuit,  should  both  suddenly  become  so  essential  to 
the  business  interests  of  the  corporations !  Their  great 
value  as  legal  advisors  had  not  attracted  railroad  interests 
until  they  reached  the  bench.  From  that  hour  the  import- 
ance of  their  services  was  beyond  computation  and  must  be 
secured  at  whatever  cost.  Enormous  salaries  were  prof- 
fered. Ample  fortune,  to  be  earned  in  a  brief  term  of 
years,  and  the  comforts  which  it  confers,  were  placed  along- 
side of  a  laborious  life  upon  the  bench  and  these  gentlemen 
resigned.  Can  there  be  a  doubt  about  the  underlying 
motives  which  caused  these  railroad  interests  to  bid  for  the 
services  of  these  gentlemen?     The  corporations  were  not 


102  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

seeking  for  coiiDsel  in  a  land  full  of  eminent  attorneys. 
They  simply  desired  to  get  rid  of  righteous  and  troublesome 
judges,  to  slay  judicial  adversaries  and,  if  possible,  install 
carpet  knights  of  their  own.  McCrary  resigned  in  1834, 
and  to-day  his  successor  is  upon  the  Supreme  bench. 

ENFRANCHISEMENT  OF  COKPOEATIONS. 

The  constitution  of  the  United  States  was  designed  as  a 
safe-guard  for  human  beings.  It  was  framed  at  a  time 
when  commerce  in  the  new  world  was  in  its  infancy  and 
when  business  was  carried  on  for  the  most  part  by  single 
individuals  and  by  associations  of  persons  called  co- 
partnerships. Our  present  phenomenal  growth  of  ideal 
beings  which  we  call  corporations  had  not  been  dreamed 
of  in  the  business  world.  When  the  Constitution  speaks 
of  citizens  and  persons,  there  can  be  nothing  clearer  than 
that  it  refers  to  human  beings  who  are  the  subjects  of  birth 
and  death  and  who  owe  allegiance  and  obedience  to  law. 
Modern  corporations  had  no  representative  in  the  Colonial 
armies  nor  were  they  present  when  the  British  forces  sur- 
rendered. They  did  not  sign  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence nor  are  their  rights  or  grievances  enumerated  in  that 
instrument.  The  design  of  the  Declaration  was  to  assert 
the  right  of  man  to  smite  his  oppressor  and  to  break  every 
chain.  It  boldly  asserts  the  theory  of  human  equality 
and  justice.  The  Constitution  is  the  Declaration  enacted 
into  law.  It  should  enable  the  citizen  to  strike  down, 
through  the  proper  law-making  bodies  and  the  courts  of 
justice,  every  assailant  of  individual  rights  or  personal 
security.  The  internal  foes  of  social  order  and  personal 
liberty  are  more  dangerous — more  insidious,  than  those 
which  threaten  from  without.  The  Constitution  should  be 
so  interpreted  as  to  protect  society  from  both.  If  it  be  not 
capable  of  such  translation  it  is  a  broken  reed  and  tiie 


THE    SUPEEME   COURT.  103 

most  stupendous  failure  of  the  Century.  The  menace  of 
plutocracy  as  manifested  in  the  modern  corporation  and 
association  of  incorporations  called  trusts,  was  not  foreseen 
by  the  framers  of  the  constitution.  But  that  interpretation 
of  our  fundamental  law  which  will  enable  both  law-makers 
and  courts  to  afford  the  amplest  safe-guards  to  the  individ- 
ual is  the  only  rendering  which  should  be  tolerated.  Men 
and  women — not  corporations — are  the  glory  of  the  state. 
It  is  man — not  the  trust — who  hastens  to  the  defense  of 
Society  when  it  is  imperiled.  It  was  the  happiness  and 
security  of  the  individual  which  engaged  the  attention  of 
our  fathers,  and  not  the  conservation  of  powerful  syndicates, 
corporations  and  combines.  Accumulated  wealth  has  for- 
ever claimed  kingship  over  the  whole  earth.  Our  fathers 
understood  this  full  well  and  sought  to  dethrone  the  tyrant 
and  to  take  the  crown  from  his  head.  This  cruel  assump- 
tion of  wealth  was  personified  in  the  monarchs  of  antiquity 
who  asserted  absolute  dominion  over  the  earnings,  the 
estates  and  the  lives  of  their  subjects.  It  gave  life  to  the 
feudal  system  of  the  middle  ages  and  it  was  the  spirit  of  the 
law  of  primogeniture.  But  its  latest  and  most  dangerous 
incarnation  is  the  intangible  and  yet  ever  living  corporation. 
The  sword  could  overthrow  the  monarch  and  the  execu- 
tioner behead  him.  The  feudal  system  perished  before  the 
inexorable  demands  of  modern  commerce  and  the  march 
of  Christianity.  But  an  invisible,  intangible  being  has  no 
fear  of  the  sword  nor  of  the  uplifted  axe.  Neither  moral 
nor  revealed  law  can  reach  it,  for  it  has  no  conscience. 
It  is  the  tyranny  of  greed  coupled  with  the  attribute  of 
statutory  immortality. 

The  despotism  of  wealth  found  its  greatest  foe  in  the 
limitations  of  human  life.  Men  died,  great  estates 
crumbled  to  pieces  and  were  redistributed  again.  Hence 
some  means  must  be  found  to  bridge  the  chasm  of  death, 


104  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

and  80  the  State  was  asked  to  create  a  being  and  place  him 
upon  the  earth  who  should  not  be  circumscribed  by  mortal- 
ity. Owing  to  the  disposition  of  man  to  transgress  every 
obligation  of  the  Decalogue  the  span  of  his  life  has  been 
cut  short  by  his  Creator.  But  our  Governments,  State  and 
ISTational,  have  been  dealing  out  legal  immortality  and  im- 
mutability by  tKe  wholesale.  They  have  created  thousands 
of  corporations  on  every  hand  and  endowed  them  with 
perpetual  succession.  They  have  clothed  them  with  all 
the  power  to  acquire  and  hold  property  which  belong  to 
ordinary  mortals.  These  artificial  beings  have  the  infirmi- 
ties of  avarice  but  are  without  the  restraining  virtue  of  con- 
science. In  every  conflict  flesh  and  blood  go  down  before 
them  like  grass  before  the  scythe.  With  the  certainty  of 
life  given  to  them,  the  fear  of  death  taken  away  and  with 
millions  of  wealth  at  their  command,  to  what  maj^  they  not 
aspire?  State  lines  are  as  cobwebs  and  great  Commonwealths 
and  populous  cities  are  only  ant  hills  to  these  terrestrial 
monsters.  Their  creation  is  in  manifest  derogation  of  moral 
law  and  a  declaration  of  war  upon  humanity.  The  world 
should  become  awake  to  this  fact  before  it  is  too  late. 

But  let  us  carefully  note  the  gradual  steps  in  their 
enfranchisement  which  is  now  thorough  and  complete 
throughout  the  Kepubhc. 

The  power  of  either  Congress  or  the  State  Legislatures 
to  create  corporations  and  endow  them  with  perpetual  suc- 
cession was  at  first  stubbornly  denied.  It  was  speedily 
sustained,  however,  by  the  courts.  To  guard  against  pos- 
sible reversals,  provisions  were  from  time  to  time  inserted 
in  State  Constitutions  expressly  granting  the  power.  Capital- 
ists were  quick  to  avail  themselves  of  the  proffered  advan- 
tages and  hence  the  unparalleled  growth  of  these  institu- 
tions in  modern  times.  Now  that  they  had  a  statutory 
birth   the  question  of  their  status  in  society  and  in  businosc 


THE    SUPREME    COURT.  105 

affairs  became  important.  Having  by  their  incorporation 
escaped  all  the  weaknesses  and  disagreeable  limitations 
belonging  to  natural  persons,  they  then  laid  claim  to  all 
the  rights  and  immunities  belonging  to  man,  including 
that  of  citizenship  under  the  Constitution.  Having  thus 
far  conquered  they  at  once  laid  siege  to  the  Court  of  Last 
Eesort. 

In  the  year  1769  the  British  crown  (Geo,  III.)  granted  a 
charter  to  the  trustees  of  Dartmouth  College  in  the  then 
colony  of  New  Hampshire.  Early  in  the  present  Centurj- 
the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  New  Hampshire  passed  a  law 
to  amend  this  charter  and  making  a  change  in  the  board  of 
trustees.  The  power  of  the  Legislature  to  do  so  was  stub- 
bornly denied.  Litigation  folloM'ed  in  the  State  courts 
where  the  legislation  was  upheld  and  the  cause  quickly 
found  its  way  to  the  Supreme  Court.  Daniel  Webster  was 
of  counsel  for  the  corporation.  The  litigation  attracted 
very  wide  attention.  Chief  Justice  Marshall,  speaking  for 
the  Court,  pronounced  the  opinion  in  the  year  1819.  (4 
Wheaton,  518.)  He  held  that  the  charter  granted  by  the 
British  crown  constituted  a  contract  within  the  meaning  of 
that  clause  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  which 
declares  that  no  state  shall  make  any  law  impairing  the 
obligation  of  contracts.  The  Court  held  that  the  charter 
was  not  dissolved  by  the  Kevolution,  and  that  the  subse- 
quent act  of  the  New  Hampshire  Legislature,  after  the 
organization  of  the  government  of  the  United  States, 
and  after  the  admission  of  that  State  into  the  Union,  alter- 
ing the  charter  in  a  material  respect,  was  an  act  impairing 
the  obligation  of  the  charter,  and  therefore  unconstitu- 
tional. This  decision  is  the  great  bulwark  of  corporate 
power.  It  is  the  shield  and  hiding  place  for  all  kinds  of 
associations  which  are  plotting  to  rob  the  people  and  sup- 
plant Democratic  government.     It  is  infinitely  more  disas- 


106  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

trous  and  fatal  than  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  for  unless  our 
Constitution  be  amended  or  the  decision  overthrown  in  the 
Court,  which  is  now  quite  impossible,  it  must  be  accepted 
as  the  law  through  all  time.  The  immutability  of  charters, 
and  doctrine  of  vested  rights  arising  under  the  acts  of  Legis- 
latures, by  which  all  subsequent  Legislatures  are  pre- 
cluded from  either  repealing  or  changing  the  conditions 
of  the  grant — these  and  a  multitude  of  other  evils  have 
sprung  from  the  Dartmouth  College  case. 

In  the  case  of  the  Louisville  Railroad  Company  vs.  Let- 
son,  2  Howard,  555,  decided  in  18-M,  and  Insurance  Com- 
pany vs.  Morse,  20  Wallace  U.  S.  Rep.,  553,  decided  in 
1874,  it  is  held  that  a  railroad  company,  or  other  corpora- 
tion, of  course,  is  a  citizen  within  the  meaning  of  section  2, 
article  3,  of  the  Constitution,  and  also  within  the  meaning 
of  that  section  of  the  Judiciary  act  of  1789,  and  subsequent 
acts,  which  provide  for  the  removal  of  causes  from  State  to 
Federal  courts. 

These  cases,  taken  together,  constitute  a  Pandora's  box, 
out  of  which  have  sprung  a  brood  of  evils  which  are  now 
embarrassing  and  afflicting  the  Commonwealth.  They  com- 
pletely enfranchise  the  whole  multitude  of  artificial  persons 
and  grant  them  a  status  and  base  of  operations  from  which 
they  can  carry  on  their  war  for  the  subjugation  and  enslave- 
ment of  natural  persons.  It  is  safe  to  assert  that  no  mem- 
ber of  the  Constitutional  Convention  ever  contemplated 
anything  of  the  kind.  It  is  a  vicious  fiction  existing  solely 
in  the  imagination  of  the  Court. 

It  is  curious  to  note  the  progress  made  by  the  Court  in 
reaching  the  conclusion  that  a  corporation  is  a  citizen 
within  the  meaning  of  the  Constitution.  At  first  it  was 
held  by  Chief  Justice  Marshall,  in  Bank  of  U.  S.  vs. 
Deveaux,  that  "An  invisible,  intangible  and  artificial 
being,  that  mere  legal  entity — a  corporation  aggregate — is 


THE    SUPREME   COUET.  107 

certainly  not  a  citizen,  and  consequently  cannot  sue  or  be 
sued  in  the  courts  of  the  United.  States,  unless  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  corporation  were  citizens  of  the  State  which 
created  it."  The  same  doctrine  was  held  in  Strawbridge 
vs.  Curtiss.     See  3rd  Cranch  36,  5th  Cranch  267. 

It  was  next  held  that  all  members  of  the  corporation 
should  be  conclusively  presumed  to  be  citizens  of  the 
State  that  created  it,  and  that  the  presumption  could  neither 
be  denied  in  pleadings  nor  contradicted  by  evidence!  Still 
later  it  was  held  in  Louisville  Railroad  Company  vs.  Let- 
son,  2d  Howard,  page  555,  "That  the  former  decisions 
had  never  been  satisfactory  to  the  bar,  and  not  entirely 
satisfactory  to  the  Court  that  made  them!" 

Quoting  from  the  Dartmouth  College  case,  they  hold  that 
a  "Corporation  is  an  artificial  being,  invisible,  intangible, 
and  existing  only  in  contemplation  of  law;  that  it  possesses 
only  those  properties  which  the  charter  of  its  crea- 
tion confers  upon  it.  These  are  such  as  were  supposed 
best  calculated  to  effect  the  object  for  which  it  was  created, 
and  among  the  most  important  are  immortality  and  indi- 
viduality— properties  by  which  a  perpetual  succession  of 
many  persons  are  considered  as  the  same,  and  may  act  as 
a  single  individual.  They  enable  a  corporation  to  manage 
its  own  affairs,  and  to  hold  property  without  the  perplex- 
ing intricacies,  the  hazardous  and  endless  necessity  of  per- 
petual conveyances  for  the  purpose  of  transmitting  it  from 
hand  to  hand.  It  is  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  clothing 
bodies  of  men  in  succession  with  these  qualities  and  capac- 
ities, that  corporations  were  invented  and  are  in  use.  By 
these  means  a  perpetual  succession  of  individuals  are 
capable  of  acting  for  the  promotion  of  the  particular  object 
like  one  immortal  being."  And  then  they  squarely  hold  in 
the  same  case,  that  "A  corporation  created  by  and  doing 
business  in  a  particular  state  is  to  be  deemed  to  all  intents 


108  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

and  purposes  a  person,  although  an  artificial  person,  an 
inhabitant  of  the  same  State  for  the  purpose  of  its  incor- 
poration, capable  of  being  treated  as  a  citizen  of  that 
State,  as  much  as  a  natural  person." 

This,  the  court  declares,  is  a  natural  inference  from  the 
decision  in  the  Dartmouth  College  case.  The  whole  super- 
structure seems  to  bo  built  upon  a  succession  of  inferences 
instead  of  upon  a  plain  grant  of  power. 

In  1874,  an  opinion  was  rendered  in  the  Insurance  Com- 
pany vs.  Morse.  20  Wallace,  U.  S.  Kep.,  553,  that  a  cor- 
poration is  a  citizen  of  the  State  by  which  it  was  created, 
and  in  which  its  principal  place  of  business  is  situated,  so 
far  that  it  can  sue  and  be  sued  in  the  Federal  courts,  and 
like  natural  persons,  has  the  right  to  remove  its  causes  from 
the  State  to  the  Federal  courts. 

Now  every  member  of  the  bar,  every  intelligent  person, 
certainly  knows  that  there  is  not  a  particle  of  authority  for 
this  ruling,  either  in  the  Constitution  itself  or  in  the  busi- 
ness situation  at  the  time  the  Constitution  was  made. 
The  very  terms  used  in  that  instrument  and  in  the  Judiciary 
Act  of  1789,  exclude  and  render  unreasonable  any  such 
interpretation.  Both  the  Constitution  and  the  act  use  the 
word  citizen,  evidently  meaning  natural  persons.  It  is 
simply  and  purely  judicial  legislation  of  the  most  unau- 
thorized character,  promulgated  in  amplification  of  the  juris- 
diction of  the  Court.  The  first  opinions  of  Chief  Justice 
Marshall,  found  in  3rd  and  5th  Cranch,  referred  to  above 
are  correct.  They  were  in  harmony  with  the  Constitution 
and  in  accord  with  sound  reason. 

The  gradual   and  reluctant   change   of  opinion  by  the 
Court  was  contemporaneous  with  the  alarming  growth  of 
corporate  power  and  influence  in  American  business  life 
As  the  Court  showed  hesitation,    the   corporations  grew 


THE    SUPREME   COURT.  109 

importunate,  and  the  complete  surrender  of  the  Judiciary 
quickly  followed. 

What  authority  had  our  courts,  in  the  absence  of  legis- 
lative expression,  to  enfranchise  this  modern  octopus,  and 
clothe  it  with  all  the  rights  of  citizenship?  Neither  Con- 
gress nor  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  had  ventured  to 
do  so.  No  act  of  legislation  since  the  foundation  of  our 
Government  has  exerted  such  stupendous  influence  upon 
the  fortunes  and  business  interests  of  the  American  people 
as  this  one  unconstitutional  and  wholly  unauthorized  judi- 
cial ipse  dixit.  It  was  the  one  thing  needful  to  place  the 
people  in  complete  subjection  to  corporate-power. 

And  they  have  even  gone  so  far  as  to  flatly  hold  that 
where  an  insurance  company  had  filed  an  agreement  in 
compliance  with  the  law  of  the  State  of  Wisconsin,  as  a  con- 
dition precedent  to  entering  upon  business  in  that  State,  that 
it  would  litigate  its  causes  in  the  State  courts  and  not  remove 
the  same  to  the  Federal  courts,  was  not  binding,  and  that  the 
act  of  the  Legislature  which  required  the  company  to  file  this 
agreement  was  unconstitutional  and  void. 

Such,  also,  was  the  fate  of  an  Act  recently  passed  by  the 
Iowa  Legislature  known  as  the  Sweeney  law,  which  required 
foreign  corporations  doing  business  within  the  State  of  Iowa 
to  become  incorporated  under  the  laws  thereof.  It  was  held 
to  be  repugnant  to  the  Constitution. 

These  and  other  decisions  of  similar  import  inaugurated 
the  conflict  now  pending  in  the  United  States  between  nat- 
ural and  artificial  persons.  The  corporations  are  intrenched 
in  the  courts  and  the  people  are  at  great  disadvantage.  It 
is  a  race  war  of  the  fiercest  kind,  and  a  war  of  subjugation, 
for  it  is  the  evident  purpose  of  the  multitude  of  artificial 
persons  to  drive  the  great  body  of  mankind  to  the  wall  and 
to  compel  them  to  submit  to  the  yoke.  The  barbarians  over- 
ran Rome,  but  the  corporations  and  trusts  have  secured  a 


110  A   CALL  TO    ACTION. 

much  easier  conquest  liei'e.  It  must  be  conceded  that  in  a 
struggle  with  persons  clothed,  as  the  courts  say,  with  "indi- 
viduahty,  immutability  and  immortalitj","  and  who  possess 
at  the  same  time  unlimited  wealth,  natural  persons  would 
be  very  unequally  yoked.  So  far  as  this  world  is  concerned 
man  lacks  two  of  these  attributes.  He  enters  the  contest 
with  but  one — his  individuality,  and  sooner  or  later  is  likely 
to  regret  that  he  possesses  even  that. 

INSTABILITY   OF   JUDICIAL   OPINION   AND   RESULTING  EVILS. 

A  critical  examination  of  the  adjudications  of  our 
Supreme  Court  upon  the  most  vital  questions  of  tlie  Century 
impresses  us  with  the  instability  of  judicial  opinion,  and  we 
stand  astonished  at  the  spectacle  of  fickleness  and  incon- 
stancy which  rises  up  before  us. 

Whilst  the  administration  of  justice  between  private  indi- 
viduals is  always  important,  as  it  is  one  of  the  chief  ends 
for  which  Society  is  organized ;  yet  when  this  duty  is  con- 
fined to  trustworthy  hands,  the  steady  flow  and  exercise  of 
the  power  does  not  attract  marked  public  attention.  The 
members  of  community  know  generally  that  the  courts  of 
justice  hold  their  regular  sessions ;  tliat  persons  accused  of 
crime  are  being  tried,  convicted  and  punished  or  restored 
to  their  liberty ;  that  judgments  and  decrees  are  being  ren- 
dered and  property  taken  and  transferred  to  satisfy  a 
variety  of  obligations;  but  beyond  this  general  comprehen- 
sion the  great  mass  of  people  are  unobservant  and  ordina- 
rily disinterested.  When,  however,  absorbing  controversies 
arise  involving  the  right  of  a  State,  inhabited  by  millions 
of  people,  to  protect  its  citizens  from  various  abuses  affect- 
ing the  morals,  the  health,  the  business  and  the  safety  of 
Society,  the  attitude  of  our  Court  of  last  resort  should  be 
unmistakable,  clear  and  steadfast.  The  adjudications  of 
nearly  a  century  upon  a  given  question,  all  concurring  to 


THE    SUPREME    COUET.  Ill 

establish  a  certain  construction  for  the  guidance  of  the  citi- 
zen and  the  States  alike,  should  not  be  disturbed,  and  the 
institutions  and  laws  which  have  become  chrystalized  and 
established  in  consequence  of  these  decisions  should  not  be 
broken  up  and  unsettled  with  impunity.  This  tribunal,  if 
it  would  command  respect,  should  see  to  it  that  its  adjudi- 
cations comport  with  the  dignity  of  the  parties  to  the  con- 
troversy, be  equal  to  the  gravity  of  the  questions  involved 
and  as  thorough  and  exhaustive  as  it  is  possible  for  the 
human  understanding  to  afford. 

Our  Federal  Union  is  now  composed  of  forty-four  inde- 
pendent States,  with  avenues  of  inter-communication  which 
sever  State  lines  and  municipal  boundaries  with  as  little 
regard  as  birds  of  passage  exhibit  when,  with  the  recur- 
rance  of  the  seasons,  they  make  their  periodic  flights  across 
the  continent.  The  Legislative  power  of  the  States  over 
institutions  of  their  own  creation,  over  questions  of  internal 
police,  the  point  where  this  power  ceases  and  the  authority 
of  Congress  begins,  aiid  vice  versa^  are  questions  of  vital 
import  in  this  day  of  colossal  corporations  and  associated 
capital.  If  the  Court  is  entitled  to  the  respect  and  venera- 
tion which  is  claimed  for  it,  the  legislation  and  litigation  of 
a  Century  should  not  leave  us  in  doubt,  at  this  late  period, 
concerning  the  lines  which  separate  between  the  State  and 
Federal  sovereignty. 

Let  us  proceed  to  an  examination  of  the  decisions  of  the 
Court  relating  to  questions  of  internal  police  and  the  regu- 
lation of  inter-state  commerce.  The  first  great  case  in  this 
category  was  decided  at  the  January  term,  1829,  Wilson  vs. 
the  Blackbird  Creek  Company,  2  Peters.  245.  A  law  had 
been  passed  by  the  State  of  Delaware  to  authorize  the  con- 
struction of  a  dam  in  a  navigable  tide-water  of  that  State. 
In  delivering  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  Court,  Cinef 
Justice  Marshall  said:     "The  measure  authorized  by  this 


112  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

act  stops  a  navigable  creek  and  must  be  supposed  to 
abridge  the  rights  of  those  who  have  been  accustomed  to 
use  it.  But  this  abridgment,  unless  it  comes  in  conflict 
with  the  Constitution  or  a  law  of  the  United  States,  is  an 
afl[air  between  the  Government  of  Delaware  and  its  citizens 
of  which  this  Court  can  take  no  cognizance.  Counsel  for 
the  plaintiff  in  error  insists  that  it  comes  in  conflict  with  the 
power  of  the  United  States  to  regulate  commerce  with  for- 
eign nations  and  among  the  several  States.  If  Congress 
had  passed  an  act  which  bore  upon  the  case  *•  *  * 
we  should  feel  not  much  ditiiculty  in  saying  that  a  State 
law  coming  in  conflict  with  such  act  would  be  void.  But 
Congress  has  passed  no  such  act.  The  repugnancy  of  the 
law  of  Delaware  to  the  Constitution  is  placed  entirely  on 
its  repugnancy  to  the  power  to  regulate  commerce  with 
foreign  nations  and  among  the  several  States;  a  power 
which  has  not  been  so  exercised  as  to  affect  the  question." 

There  can  be  no  misunderstanding  concerning  the  mean- 
ing and  scope  of  such  language. 

Thestate  of  Pennsylvania,  through  its  legislature,  author- 
ized the  city  of  Philadelphia  to  erect  a  permanent  bridge 
across  the  Schuylkill  river  (a  navigable  water),  at  the  foot 
of  Chestnut  street.  The  constitutionality  of  the  act  was 
called  in  question  and  the  case  was  taken  to  the  Supreme 
Court,  Gillman  vs.  Philadelphia,  3  Wall.,  713,  where  the 
law  was  upheld.  The  court  held  that  "It  was  for  Congress 
to  determine  when  its  full  power  to  regulate  commerce 
should  be  brought  into  activity  *  *  *  and  that  until 
the  dormant  power  of  the  Constitution  is  awakened  and 
made  effective  by  appropriate  legislation  the  reserve  power 
of  the  States  is  plenary  and  its  exercise  in  good  faith  can 
not  be  made  the  subject  of  review  by  this  court." 

Again,  in  the  Escanaba  Co.  vs.  Chicago,  107  U.  S.,  678, 
683,  where  the  city  had,  in  pursuance  of  a  State  statute, 


THE    SUPREME   COURT.  113 

regulated  the  times  for  opening  and  closing  the  draws  in 
the  bridges  crossing  the  Chicago  river,  which  operated  as  a 
regulation  of  commerce  both  interstate  and  foreign,  the 
Supreme  Court  held  that  '"There  being  no  legislation  by 
Congress  to  the  contrary  the  power  was  constitutionally 
exercised."  Mr.  Justice  Field,  delivering  the  opinion  of  the 
court,  said:  "The  Chicago  river  and  its  branches  *  *  * 
must  be  deemed  navagable  waters  of  the  United  States. 
But  the  States  have  full  power  to  regulate  within  their  lim- 
its matters  of  internal  police,  including  in  that  general 
designation  whatever  will  promote  the  peace,  comfort,  con- 
venience and  prosperity  of  their  people." 

For  more  than  eighty  years  in  the  history  6f  'this  country 
the  States  exercised  almost  excljisiye,  ■control  over  roads, 
bridges,  ferries,  wharves  and,  harbors,  and  no  judicial 
tribunal  doubted  their  right  to  do  so- 

The  case  of  Transjoortation  Co.  vs.  Parkersburg,  is  in 
point.  The  city  had  built  certain  wharves  for  the  accom- 
modation of  vessels  navigating  the  Ohio  river  and  estab- 
lished certain  charges  which  boat  owners  were  required  to 
pay.  Parties  engaged  in  navigating  that  river  claimed 
that  the  State  law  authorizing  such  charges  was  an  uncon- 
stitutional inference  with  the  commerce  of  the  Ohio  river. 
The  Supreme  Court  held  that  "Until  Congress  has  acted, 
the  courts  can  not  assume  control  over  the  subject  as  a  mat- 
ter of  federal  cognizance.  It  is  Congress,  and  not  the 
judicial  department,  to  which  the  constitution  has  given  the 
power  to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations  and 
among  the  several  states.  The  courts  can  never  take  the 
initiative  on  this  subject." 

The  decision  in  Pelk  m.  The  Chicago  <&  N.  W.  Ify^  94 
U.  S.,  164,  is  also  in  point.  This  case  involved  the  consti- 
tutionality of  a  law  of  Wisconsin  to  .regulate  the  price  of 
freights  and  passenger  traffic  on  the  railtojads  operated  in 


114  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

that  State.  It  operated  on  freight  and  passengers  carried 
from  another  State  to  any  point  within  the  State  of  Wiscon- 
sin, or  from  any  point  to  another  State.  The  Court  held 
that  "Until  Congress  acts  in  reference  to  the  relation  of 
this  company  to  interstate  commerce,  it  is  certainly  within 
the  power  of  Wisconsin  to  regulate  its  fares  so  far  as  they 
are  of  domestic  concern.  *  *  *  Incidentally 
these  may  reach  beyond  the  State.  But  certainly,  until 
Congress  undertakes  to  legislate  for  those  who  are  without 
the  State,  Wisconsin  may  provide  for  those  within,  even 
though  it  may  indirectly  affect  those  without." 

Tn  Munn  vs.  Illinois,  94  U.  S.,  113.  it  was  claimed  that  a 
law  of  the  State  of  Illinois  prescribing  elevator  charges 
was  an  attempt  to  regulate  commerce  among  the  States, 
inasmuch  as  it  applied  to  wheat  in  transit  between  the 
States.  The  Chief  Justice,  in  delivering  the  opinion  of 
the  Court  said:  "  There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  exclu- 
sive power  has  been  conferred  upon  Congress  in  respect  to 
the  regulation  of  commerce  among  the  several  States.  The 
difficulty  has  never  been  as  to  the  existence  of  the  power, 
but  as  to  what  is  to  be  deemed  an  encroachment  upon  it." 

Then  referring  to  the  cases  of  dams,  navigable  waters, 
turnpikes  and  ferries,  and  after  stating  that  the  question  at 
bar  was  in  all  essential  respects  the  same,  he  says:  "Their 
regulation  may  be  assumed  by  the  State  until  Congress 
acts  in  reference  to  their  foreign  and  interstate  relation." 

The  decision  in  the  license  cases,  5  Howard,  504,  decided 
in  1846,  is  exactly  in  point.  The  case  of  Pierce  et  al.  vs. 
New  Hampshire,  is  the  most  important  in  this  group.  The 
defendants  had  been  fined  for  selling  a  barrel  of  gin  in 
New  Hampshire,  which  they  had  bought  in  Boston  and 
shipped  coastwise  to  Portsmouth,  and  there  sold  in  the 
same  barrel  and  condition  in  which  it  was  purchased  in 
Massachusetts,  but  contrary  to  the  law  of  New  Hampshire 


THE    SUPREME   COUKT.  115 

in  that  behalf.     In  delivering   the   opinion  of   the  Court 
Chief  Justice  Taney  said: 

"The  question  brought  up  for  decision  is,  whether  a 
State  is  prohibited  by  the  constitution  of  the  United  States 
from  making  any  regulations  of  foreign  commerce  with 
another  ^State,  although  such  regulation  is  confined  to  its 
own  territory,  and  made  for  its  own  convenience  or  interest, 
and  does  not  come  in  conflict  with  any  law  of  Congress. 
In  other  words,  whether  the  grant  of  power  to  Congress  is 
of  itself  a  prohibition  to  the  States,  and  renders  all  such  law 
upon  the  subject  null  and  void.  The  mere  grant  of 
power  to  the  General  government  can  not,  upon  any  just 
principles  of  construction,  be  construed  to  be  an  absolute 
prohibition  to  the  exercise  of  any  power  over  the  same 
subject  by  the  States.  The  controlling  and  supreme  power 
over  commerce  with  foreign  nations  and  the  several  States 
is  undoubtedly  conferred  upon  Congress.  Yet,  in  my  judg- 
ment, the  State  may,  nevertheless,  for  the  safety  or  conve- 
nience of  trade,  or  for  the  protection  of  the  health  of  its 
citizens,  make  regulations  of  commerce  for  its  citizens, 
make  regulations  of  commerce  for  its  own  ports  and  har- 
bors, and  for  its  own  territory;  and  such  regulations  are 
valid  unless  they  come  in  conflict  with  a  law  of  Congress.'' 

The  conclusion  of  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Chief  Justice 
Taney  is  in  these  words: 

"Upon  the  whole,  therefore,  the  law  of  New  Hampshire 
is  in  my  judgment  a  valid  one.  For,  although  the  gin  sold 
was  an  import  from  another  State,  and  Congress  have 
clearly  the  power  to  regulate  such  importations,  under  the 
grant  of  power  to  regulate  commerce  among  the  several 
States,  yet  as  Congress  has  made  no  regulation  on  the  sub- 
ject, the  traffic  in  the  article  may  be  lawfully  regulated  by 
the  State  as  soon  as  it  is  landed  in  its  territory,  and  a  tax 
imposed  upon  it,  or  a  licence  required,  or  the  sale  altogether 
prohibited,  according  to  the  policy  which  the  State  may 
suppose  to  be  its  interest  or  duty  to  pursue." 

But  why  cite  further  cases  in  which  this  doctrine  has 
been  enunciated?     To  use  the  language  of  the  dissentins: 


116  A    CALL   TO    ACTION, 

judges  in  Wabash  etc.  Railway  Company  vs.  Illinois.  "It 
is  almost  a  work  of  supererogation  to  refer  to  the  cases. 
They  are  legion." 

From  the  accession  of  Chief  Justice  Marshall  in  1801,  to 
the  opinions  pronounced  by  Chief  Justice  Waite  in  the 
Grange  cases  of  1876,  covering  three-quarters  of  a  century, 
it  was  uniformly  held  that  in  the  class  of  cases  now  under 
consideration,  the  power  of  the  States  was  plenary  when 
exercised  in  good  faith,  and  that  in  the  absence  of  Con- 
gressional action,  could  not  be  made  the  subject  of  judicial 
review.  To  use  the  very  terse  language  of  the  Court  in 
the  Parkersburg  case,  "Until  Congress  has  acted,  the 
Courts  cannot  assume  control  as  a  matter  of  federal  cogni- 
zance. That  it  is  to  Congress  and  not  to  the  Judicial 
department,  to  which  the  Constitution  has  given  the  power 
to  regulate  Commerce  with  foreign  nations  and  among  the 
several  States,  and  that  the  Courts  can  never  take  the  ini- 
tiative on  this  subject."  Chief  Justice  Waite  died  enter- 
taining these  opinions,  and  so,  doubtless,  did  all  his 
illustrious  predecessors. 

DECADENCE  OF  THE  COURT. 

The  extraordinary  financial  crisis  precipitated  upon  the 
country  in  the  autumn  of  1873,  pervaded  every  avenue  of 
society  and  shook  every  branch  of  industry.  The  politi- 
cal consequences  which  followed  were  tremendous. 
Throughout  the  northwest,  in  particular,  the  Grange 
movement  rose  like  a  tempest,  and  soon  reached  every 
nook  and  corner  of  the  country.  Investigation  quickly 
revealed  the  fact  that  producers,  consumers,  and  the  pub- 
lic generally,  were  being  shamefully  swindled  by  excessive 
railroad  rates  and  fares,  and  that  public  safety  required 
that  the  t3a'anny  of  monopoly  should  be  overthrown. 
Legislators  were  chosen  witli  reference  to  the  great  con- 


THE    SUPKEME    COUKT.  117 

troversy,  and  political  parties  in  the  Northwest  were  com 
pletely  disorganized.  Legislation  followed  in  restraint  oi 
corporate  pretensions.  In  Iowa,  Wisconsin,  and  othei 
States  statutes  were  enacted,  prescribing  maximum  rates, 
beyond  which  the  companies  were  forbidden  to  charge, 
under  heavy  penalties.  The  conflict  between  the  people 
and  the  corporations  grew  to  be  fierce.  It  was  the  first 
important  engagement  between  the  belligerent  and  deter- 
mined forces.  They  fought  at  every  step  and  contested 
every  inch  of  the  ground.  True,  the  companies  were  the 
offspring  of  the  State,  but  they  did  not  allow  a  trifling 
matter  of  that  kind  to  deter  them  for  a  moment.  They 
spurned  parental  counsel,  harrassed  everybod}^  refused  to 
obey  the  law,  forbade  the  people  to  go  aboard  their  trains 
without  tickets,  and  declined  to  sell  tickets  except  at  the 
old  rates.  While  this  unseemly  warfare  was  in  progress 
cases  to  test  the  constitutionality  of  the  offensive  statutes 
were  being  rapidly  pushed  in  the  courts;  meanwhile  the 
anti-monopoly  feeling  among  the  people  was  constantly 
gaining  in  intensity  and  power.  The  corporations  were 
defeated  in  the  State  tribunals,  and  at  once  appealed  to  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  As  we  have  already 
learned,  they  were  equally  unsuccessful  in  that  tribunal. 

The  monopolists  were  discomfited,  of  course,  by  these 
reverses,  but  never  for  a  moment  did  they  abandon  their 
purpose.  They  were  full  of  resources  and  bent  on  final 
victory.  Not  so  with  the  people.  They  were  exultant, 
short-sighted,  unmindful  of  the  future,  ceased  to  be  watch- 
ful and  disbanded  their  forces.  They  did  not  comprehend 
the  strength  and  tenacity  of  their  powerful  adversary. 

In  the  Grange  cases  the  corporations  endeavored  first  to 
overthrow  the  long  line  of  decisions  heretofore  recited 
which  held  that  in  the  absence  of  Congressional  action  the 
States  might  lawfully  legislate  upon  this  class  of  subjects; 


118  A    CALL   TO   ACTION. 

second,  to  have  it  judicially  determined  that  even  in  strictly 
State  traffic,  the  question  whether  rates  exacted  by  trans- 
portation companies  were  reasonable  or  not,  was  a  judicial 
question  and  could  not  therefore  be  determined  by  the 
Legislature.  The  Court  ruled  against  the  corporations  on 
both  propositions. 

Following  these  judicial  reverses,  the  conspiracy  alluded 
to  by  the  Hon.  David  Davis,  was  formed  to  fill  the 
Supreme  Bench  with  men  trained  in  the  school  of  the  cor- 
porations, and  whose  mental  bias,  forensic  education  and 
professional  experience  qualify  them  to  evolve  that  new 
juripprudence — that  new  theory  of  constitutional  construc- 
tion which  shall  stifle  State  Legislatures,  palsy  the  arm  of 
the  people,  and  at  once  afford  to  the  corporations  a  safe 
retreat  from  popular  indignation  and  legislative  super- 
vision. The  success  which  has  crowned  their  efforts  will 
become  painfully  apparent  as  we  carefully  examine  the 
decisions  since  that  period.  The  people  were  victorious  in 
the  decrees  of  1876,  but  tliey  have  met  with  unbroken  dis- 
aster from  that  date  forward, 

THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   A   DECADE. 

The  transition  had  begun  in  earnest.  Ten  years  had 
elapsed  since  the  first  forensic  encounter  of  1876  had  taken 
place  between  the  people  and  the  three  giants,  known  as 
the  Chicago,  Burlington  &  Quincy,  the  Chicago  &  North- 
western and  the  Chicago,  Milwaukee  and  St.  Paul  railway 
companies.  The  defeat  of  the  corporations  was  hailed 
at  the  time  with  delight  by  the  multitude  and  attracted 
marked  attention  everywhere.  But  this  august  Court, 
greatly  changed,  was  in  session  for  the  October  term,  1886, 
There  had  been  no  change  in  the  Constitution  meantime, 
nor  in  the  oath  of  office  of  the  judges.  One  of  the  judges 
it  seems,  had  been  re-illuminated  during  the  decade,  while 


THE   SUPREME   COURT.  119 

others  had  passed  away  and  new  men  had  taken  their 
places.  The  case  of  Wabash,  St.  Louis  &  Pacific  Railway 
Company  vs.  Illinois  was  up  for  hearing.  A  state — three 
millions  of  people,  their  Le«;islature  and  courts — stood  at 
the  bar^,  summoned  hither  at  the  beck  of  a  corporation 
which  this  same  state  had  created,  but  which  now  denied 
the  authority  of  its  creator  to  circumscribe  its  conduct  or 
set  limits  to  its  exactions. 

The  Legislature  of  Illinois  had  passed  an  act  which,  in 
substance,  made  it  unlawful  for  a  railroad  corporation, 
doing  business  in  that  State,  to  charge,  collect  or  receive, 
directly  or  indirectly,  for  the  transportation  of  freight  or 
passengers  upon  its  road,  the  same  or  a  greater  amount  of 
toll  than  was  charged  for  the  same  class  of  goods  shipped  a 
greater  distance  in  the  same  direction,  and  prescribed  pen- 
alties which  were  to  follow  the  violation  of  the  law.  It 
appeared  that  the  company  had,  in  violation  of  the  Illinois 
statute,  charged  Elder  &  McKinney  for  transporting  26,000 
pounds  of  goods  from  Peoria,  111.,  to  New  York  City  the 
sum  of  $39. 00,  being  at  the  rate  of  fifteen  cents  ppr  hun- 
dred pounds  for  the  car  load;  that  on  the  same  day  they  had 
agreed  to  transport  for  Isaac  Bailey  and  F.  O  Swansell 
another  car  load  of  goods  of  hke  character  from  Gilman, 
111.,  to  New  York  City  for  the  sum  of  $65.00,  being  at  the 
rate  of  twenty-five  cents  per  hundred  pounds.  The  car  load 
transported  at  the  fifteen  cent  rate  was  carried  eighty-six 
miles  farther  than  the  car  load  for  which  they  charged 
twenty-five  cents  per  hundred.  Suit  was  brought  in  the 
State  courts  to  enforce  the  law  against  the  delinquent  road. 
The  corporation  claimed  that  the  law  was  unconstitutional, 
for  the  reason  that  it  was  an  attempt  to  regulate  commerce 
among  the  States.  The  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  of  Illi- 
nois overruled  the  point,  and  held  that,  as  the  statute 
applied  only  to  that  portion  of  the  service  rendered  within 


120  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

the  State,  it  was  valid  and  must  be  obej  ed.  In  support  of 
its  decision  the  Court  cited  the  opinions  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  in  the  Grange  cases,  and  partic- 
ularly the  following  language,  found  in  Peik  vs.  Chicago  & 
Northwestern  Kailway  Company,  94  U.  S.,  177-8^  "As  to 
the  effect  of  the  statute  as  a  regulation  of  inter-state  com- 
merce, the  law  is  confined  to  State  commerce,  or  such  inter- 
state commerce  as  directly  affects  the  people  of  Wisconsin. 
Until  Congress  acts  in  reference  to  the  relations  of  this 
company  to  inter-state  commerce,  it  is  certainly  within  the 
power  of  Wisconsin  to  regulate  its  fares,  etc.,  so  far  as  they 
are  of  domestic  concern.  With  the  people  of  Wisconsin 
this  company  has  domestic  relations.  Incidentally,  these 
may  reach  beyond  the  State.  But  certainly,  until  Congress 
undertakes  to  legislate  for  those  who  are  without  the  State, 
Wisconsin  may  provide  for  those  within,  even  though  it 
may  indirectly  affect  those  without." 

The  reader  will  understand  that  the  Wisconsin  statute, 
concerning  which  the  above  ruling  was  made  in  1876,  was 
in  every  particular  substantially  the  >.same  as  the  Illinois 
statute  now  under  consideration,  and  was  so  treated  by  the 
judges  who  concurred  as  well  as  those  who  dissented  from 
the  opinion  rendered.  The  Wisconsin  statute  was  upheld 
in  1886;  but  owing  to  the  marked  change  in  the  personnel 
of  the  Court  and  the  change  of  opinion  on  the  part  of  one 
of  the  old  judges,  the  Illinois  law  was  less  fortunate  in 
1886,  and  was  declared  unconstitutional  and  void.  It  is 
creditable  to  Chief  Justice  Waite  and  Mr.  Justice  Bradley, 
that  they  rigidly  adhered  to  their  former  opinion  given  in 
the  Grange  cases,  and  hence  filed  an  able  dissenting  opinion 
in  this  case,  in  which  Mr.  Justice  Gray  concurred. 

During  the  presentation  of  the  case  to  the  Court,  Mr, 
Hunt,  attorney-general  of  Illinois,  strongly  urged  the  sim- 
ilarity of  the  two  statutes  and  cited  the  decision  of  the 


THE   SUPREME    COURT.  121 

Court  in  the  Grange  cases  as  conclusive  of  the  whole 
matter  in  controversy.  He  showed  that  the  State  Legisla- 
ture and  the  Court  of  Illinois  had  been  guided  by  the 
decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  and 
had  in  no  respect  exceeded  the  authority  there  enunciated 
and  upheld.  The  thrust  was  keenly  "felt  and  the  awkward 
and  embarrassing  attitude  of  the  Court  was  reluctantly 
admitted.  One  of  the  justices  who  had  concurred  in  the 
Grange  opinions,  delivered  the  opinion  in  this  case.  He 
saj^s: 

' '  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  general  language  of  the 
Court  in  these  (Grange)  cases,  upon  the  power  of  Con- 
gress to  regulate  commerce,  may  be  susceptible  of  the 
meaning  which  the  Illinois  Court  places  upon  it." 

After  quoting  the  language  of  the  Court  in  these  cases, 
he  further  says: 

"These  extracts  show  that  the  question  of  the  right  of 
the  State  to  regulate  the  rates  of  fares  and  tolls  on  rail- 
roads, and  how  far  that  right  was  affected  by  the  commerce 
clause  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  was  pre- 
sented to  the  Court  in  those  cases.  It  must  be  admitted 
that,  in  a  general  way,  the  Court  treated  the  cases  then 
before  it  as  belonging  to  that  class  of  regulations  of  com- 
merce which,  like  pilotage,  bridging  navigable  rivers,  and 
many  others,  could  be  acted  upon  by  the  States  in  the 
absence  of  any  legislation  by  Congress  on  the  same 
subject." 

The  Justice  did  himself  and  the  truth  of  history  great 
violence  when  he  intimated  that  the  Grange  cases  were  not 
fully  considered  and  ably  contested  on  both  sides  of  the 
controversy,  The  litigation  at  the  time  attracted  universal 
attention  throughout  the  country  and  the  ablest  counsel 
known  to  tlie  legal  profession  in  America  were  employed 
to  manage  the  contention.  The  Justice  further  gave  utter- 
ance in  this  case  to  the  following  remarkable  language: 


122  A    CALL   TO    ACTION, 

"Of  the  members  of  the  Court  who  concurred  in  those 
opinions,  (Grange)  there  being  two  dissentients,  but  three 
remain  and  the  writer  of  this  opinion  is  one  of  the  three. 
He  is  prepared  to  take  liis  share  of  the  responsibility  for 
the  language  used  in  those  opinions,  including  the  extracts 
above  presented.  He  does  not  feel  called  upon  to  say 
whether  those  extracts  justify  the  decision  of  the  Illinois 
court  in  the  present  case. " 

What  did  the  learned  judge  mean  by  the  statement  that 
there  were  but  three  justices  then  upon  the  bench  who  had 
participated  in  the  Grange  cases  ?  What  had  that  fact  to 
do  with  the  Constitution  ?  Are  we  to  have  a  new  interpre- 
tation of  that  instrument  every  time  we  have  a  change  of 
judges?  The  Justice  unwittingly  disclosed  the  fact  that 
the  Court,  as  at  present  constituted,  is  hostile  to  the  Grange 
decisions.  His  language  and  the  decision  which  he  was 
then  promulgating  render  this  conclusion  inevitable. 

We  submit  that  language  like  this  is  not  becoming  in  a 
Court  whose  members  hold  their  positions  by  the  life  tenure. 
What  responsibility  could  this  judge  assume?  Both  he  and 
the  Court  for  which  he  was  speaking  were  beyond  the  reach 
of  the  ballot  box;  they  could  not  be  impeached  for  judicial 
opinion  expressed  in  a  cause  properly  brought  before  them. 
There  was  no  responsibility  except  a  moral  one  which  he 
or  they  could  possibly  assume.  There  was  no  atonement 
which  the  Court  or  this  justice  could  possibly  make  for  any 
evil  which  a  wrongful  decision  might  inflict.  It  is  always 
the  unoffending  people  who  are  wounded  and  bruised  for 
transgressions  of  this  character.  But  why  did  neither  the 
Justice  nor  the  Court  feel  called  upon  to  say  whether  the 
decisions  in  the  Grange  Cases  justified  the  ruling  of  the 
Illinois  Court  ?  Both  the  State  Legislature  and  the  State 
Court  had  acted  in  strict  conformity  to  the  Grange  de- 
cisions and  relied  implicity  upon  them.  They  were  urged 
vehemently  in  the  case  as  conclusive  of  the  whole  contro- 


THE    SUPREME    COURT.  12S 

versy.  If  the  Illinois  Court  had  not  misapplied  the  decis- 
ions in  the  Grange  cases,  its  ruling  must  be  upheld  until 
the  Federal  decisions  were  themselves  overthrown;  and  yet 
the  justice,  speaking  for  the  Court,  refused  to  say  whether 
or  not  the  State  Court  was  warranted  in  making  this  appli- 
cation! This  was  the  vital  point  in  controversy.  Was  it  a 
trifling  matter  that  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  Illinois, 
the  people  thereof  and  the  State  Court  had  all  been  de- 
ceived and  mislead  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  and  by  the  very  judge  who  was  delivering  the 
opinion?  Could  judicial  arrogance  be  more  pronounced 
or  offensive?  It  was  little  dreamed  that  this  tribunal,  with- 
out the  courage  to  so  avow,  was  about  to  nullify  the  solemn 
act  of  a  State  Legislature,  the  adjudications  of  the  State 
Court  made  in  conformity  thereto,  and  its  own  deliberate 
decisions  upon  which  both  had  been  based.  No  wonder 
that  Chief  Justice  Waite,  Justice  Bradley  and  Justice  Gray 
refused  to  join  in  or  be  compromised  by  such  an  extraor- 
dinary decision. 

There  is  now  but  one  Justice  remaining  upon  the  bench 
who  concurred  in  the  Grange  decisions  of  1876 — Mr. 
Justice  Bradley.  Chief  Justice  Waite  and  Justice  Miller 
having  died  since  this  decision  in  the  Wabash  case  was 
rendered. 

Mr.  Justice  Bradley  stands  as  steadfast  as  Gibralter,  but, 
alas!  he  stands  alone,  powerless  to  arrest  the  influx  of  the 
tidal  wave.  The  Supreme  Court  is  the  highest  point  in  our 
Federal  system.  When  it  is  submerged  by  the  corporations 
what  must  necessarily  be  the  status  of  the  people  who  move 
in  the  humbler  and  lower  walks  of  life  ? 

On  March  19,  1888,  the  case  of  Bowman  vs.  Chicago  & 
Nerthwesteru  Railroad  Co.,  was  decided,  125  U.  S.,  465. 
Section  1553  of  the  Code  of  Iowa,  as  amended  by  Chapter 
143  of  the  Acts  of  the  Twentieth  General  Assembly  of 


124r  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

1886,  forbade  common  carriers  to  bring  intoxicating  liquors 
into  the  State  from  any  other  State  or  Territory,  without 
first  being  furnished  with  a  certificate  as  described  in  the 
act.  This  law  was  declared  unconstitutional  as  being  es- 
sentially a  regulation  of  commerce  among  the  States.  Its 
unconstitutionality  did  not  result  from  any  conflict  with 
the  legislation  of  Congress,  for  that  body  had  taken  no 
action,  but  simply  from  its  repugnance  to  the  mere  grant 
of  power  to  Congress  by  the  Constitution.  This  decision 
was  tantamount  to  a  declaration  by  the  Court  that  the 
grant  of  power  to  Congress  is  of  itself  a  prohibition  to  the 
States  and  renders  all  such  enactments  null  and  void.  It 
was  in  direct  conflict  with  the  unbroken  decisions  of  the 
Court  upon  that  question  for  three-quarters  of  a  century,  as 
already  shown.  The  opinion  in  this  case  was  by  Mr. 
Justice  Matthews,  whose  elevation  to  the  bench,  as  has 
been  seen,  was  surrounded  bj'-  circumstances  well  calculated 
to  awaken  public  apprehension.  There  was  an  elaborate 
concurring  opinion  also  by  Mr.  Justice  Field.  The  fact 
that  this  case  related  in  one  of  its  phases  to  the  suppress- 
ion of  the  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors  had  no  influence 
whatever  upon  the  Court.  It  involved  purely  and  simply 
the  right  of  a  State,  in  the  absence  of  action  by  Congress, 
to  legislate  at  all  upon  this  class  of  questions.  The  state 
of  affairs  foreseen  by  the  Honorable  David  Davis  was 
rapidly  becoming  manifest.  Chief  Justice  "Waite,  Justice 
Harlan  and  Justice  Gray  stoutly  dissented,  for  the  reason 
that  the  ruling  was  in  effect  a  reversal  of  the  Grange  decis- 
ions to  which  they  still  adhered.  It  was  directly  in  conflict 
with  the  opinion  in  the  case  of  Pierce  vs.  New  Hampshire, 
rendered  by  Chief  Justice  Taney,  in  1847,  before  referred 
to  in  this  chapter  and  in  point  blank  contradiction  of  the 
utterances  of  the  Court  in  the  Bobbins  case,  130  U.  S.,  493, 
where  the  Court  made  use  of  the  following  language; 


THE    SUPREME    COURT.  125 

"It  is  an  established  principle  that  the  only  way  in 
which  commerc©  between  the  States  can  be  legitimately 
affected  by  State  laws,  is  where,  by  virtue  of  its  police 
power  and  its  jurisdiction  over  persons  and  property  within 
its  limits,  a  State  provides,  for  the  security  of  the  lives, 
limbs,  health  and  comfort  of  persons  and  the  protection  of 
property;  or  where  it  does  those  things  which  may  inci- 
dentally affect  commerce,  such  as  the  establishment  and 
regulation  of  highways,  canals,  wharves,  ferries  and  other 
commercial  facilities,  *  *  *  or  by  the  passage  of  laws 
to  restrict  the  sale  of  articles  deemed  injurious  to  the  health 
or  morals  of  community. " 

Moreover,  it  was  as  suggested  by  the  dissenting  judges, 
squarely  in  conflict  with  the  opinions  in  the  Grange  cases, 
and  with  the  whole  line  of  opinions  from  the  organization 
of  the  Court  in  1790  down  to  1876,  concerning  the  power 
of  State  Legislatures  to  enact  such  laws  before  the  dormant 
force  of  the  Constitution  was  awakened  by  Congressional 
action.  But  the  ruling  in  this  case  created  no  surprise  at 
the  bar,  at  least  among  those  who  were  watching  closely 
the  current  of  events.  All  observant  members  of  com- 
munity well  understood  that  the  opinion  in  the  Wabash 
case,  above  referred  to,  marked  the  period  when  the  Court 
had  adroitly  about-faced  upon  the  real  question  in  contro- 
versy in  this  case,  and  of  course  no  retrogression  could  now 
reasonably  be  anticipated. 

Quickly  following  this  judicial  fulmination  came  the  cel- 
ebrated Iowa  original  package  decision,  which  upset  the 
New  Hampshire  case  decided  in  1847,  and  blasted  State 
laws  and  judicial  rulings  which  had  flourished  and  been 
accepted  for  more  than  two  generations. 

The  next  important  adjudication  was  in  the  case  of  the 
Chicago,  Milwaukee  &  St.  Paul  Railway  Company  vs.  the 
State  of  Minnesota,  ex  rel,  the  Railroad  and  Warehouse 
Commissioners  of  that  State.    This  judicial  Dronunciamento 


126  A   CALL  TO   ACTION. 

was  delivered  March  24,  1890,  by  Justice  Blatchford,  who 
was  appointed  in  1882.  An  act  of  the  Legislature  of  the 
State  of  Minnesota  approved  March  7,  1887,  created  a  com- 
mission to  be  known  as  the  "Railroad  and  Warehouse 
Commission,"  to  consist  of  three  persons  to  be  appointed  by 
the  Governor,  by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the 
Senate.  The  first  section  expressly  limited  the  operation  of 
the  act  to  traffic  between  points  within  the  State.  The 
second  section  declares  ' '  that  all  charges  made  by  common 
carriers,  subject  to  the  provisions  of  this  act,  *  *  * 
shall  be  equal  and  reasonable;  every  unequal  and  unreason- 
able charge  for  such  service  is  prohibited  and  declared  to 
be  unlawful."  The  eighth  section  provides  that  in  case 
the  Commission  shall  find  at  any  time  that  any  part  of  the 
tariffs  of  charges,  filed  and  published  by  any  common  car- 
rier, is  in  any  respect  unequal  or  unreasonable,  it  shall 
have  the  power,  and  is  authorized  and  directed,  to  compel 
any  common  carrier  to  change  the  same  and  adopt  such 
charge  as  the  Commission  shall  declare  to  be  equal  and 
reasonable;  to  which  end  the  Commission  shall,  in  writing, 
inform  such  carrier  in  what  respect  such  tariff  of  charges  is 
unequal  and  unreasonable,  and  shall  recommend  what  tariff 
shall  be  substituted  therefor,  and  their  action  shall  be  final; 
that  in  case  the  carrier  shall  neglect  for  ten  days  after  such 
notice  to  adopt  such  charges  as  tlie  Commission  recom- 
mends, it  shall  be  subject  to  a  writ  of  mandamus,  to  be 
issued  by  any  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court,  or  by  any  of 
the  District  Courts  of  the  State,  on  application  of  the  Com- 
mission. And  the  Commission  may  apply  also  to  any 
judge  for  an  injunction  as  against  the  carrier  to  restrain 
him  from  carrying  on  business  within  the  State  until  they 
shall  have  complied  with  the  requirements  of  law  and  the 
recommendations  of  the  Commission.  Certain  other  pen- 
alties, such  as  costs  and  counsel  fees,  were  also  to  be 
inflicted. 


THE   SUPREME    COURT.  127 

In  June,  1887,  the  boards-of-trade  union  of  four  diflfer- 
ent  municipalities  made  complaint  in  writing  that  the  Chi- 
cago, Milwaukee  &  St.  Paul  Railway  Company,  a  common 
carrier  doing  business  in  the  said  State,  was  charging 
unequal  and  unreasonable  rates  for  the  transportation  of 
milk,  and  specified  with  great  particularity  the  facts  upon 
which  they  based  their  complaint.  The  railway  company 
was  duly  apprised  by  the  Commission  of  the  nature  of  the 
complaint,  and  appeared  by  its  attorney  on  the  day  set  for 
hearing.  An  investigation  was  had  and  the  Commission 
pursued  in  all  respects  the  line  of  procedure  pointed  out 
by  the  statute.  The  Commission  found  that  the  rates 
charged,  three  cents  per  gallon,  was  unequal  and  unrea- 
sonable, and  decided  and  prescribed  two-and-a-half  cents 
per  gallon  as  equal  and  reasonable,  and  directed  the  com- 
pany to  adjust  their  charges  accordingly.  The  demand 
was  refused.  In  December,  1887,  application  was  made 
to  the  Supreme  Court  by  the  Attorney-General  of  Minne- 
sota for  an  alternate  writ  of  mandamus  to  compel  the 
company  to  comply  with  the  recommendations  of  the 
Commission  and  to  change  its  tariff  rates  and  to  adopt  the 
rate  declared  by  the  Commission  to  be  equal  and  reason- 
able. The  writ  was  accordingly  issued.  The  company 
filed  its  return  to  the  writ,  setting  up,  first,  that  it  was  not 
competent  for  the  Legislature  of  Minnesota  to  delegate  to 
a  Commission  the  power  of  fixing  rates  for  transportation, 
and  that  the  act  under  which  it  was  done  was  void  under 
the  Constitution  of  the  State;  second,  that  the  company,  as 
the  owner  of  its  railroad,  franchises,  equipment,  and 
appurtenances,  and  entitled  to  the  possession  and  beneficial 
use  thereof,  was  authorized  to  establish  rates  for  the  tran- 
sportation of  freight  and  passengers,  subject  only  to  the 
provisions  that  such  rates  should  be  fair  and  reasonable; 
that  the  establishing  of  such  rates  b}^  the  State,  against  the 


128  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

will  of  the  company,  vf&Bjpro  tanto  a  taking  of  its  property 
and  depriving  it  thereof,  without  due  process  of  law,  in 
violation  of  section  1,  of  article  14,  of  the  amendments  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States;  that  the  making  of 
the  order  of  October  13,  1887,  was  pro  tanto  a  taking  and 
deprived  the  company  of  its  property  without  due  process 
of  law,  in  violation  of  said  section  1,  and  therefore  void 
and  of  no  effect. 

That  the  rate  of  three  cents  per  gallon  as  a  freight  for 
carrying  milk  in  ten  gallon  cans  on  passenger  trains  from 
Owatonna  and  Fairibault  respectively,  to  St.  Paul  and 
Minneapolis,  was  a  reasonable,  fair,  and  just  rate;  and  that 
the  rate  of  two  and  a-half  cents  per  gallon  in  ten  gallon 
cans  so  fixed  and  established  by  the  Commission,  was  not 
a  reasonable,  fair  or  just  compensation  to  the  company  for 
the  services  rendered,  and  that  the  establishing  of  such 
rate  by  the  Commission  against  the  will  of  the  company 
was,  pro  tanto^  a  taking  of  its  property  without  due  process 
of  law. 

The  case  came  on  for  hearing  and  the  company  applied 
for  a  reference  to  take  testimony  on  the  issue  raised  by  the 
allegations  as  to  whether  the  rate  fixed  by  the  Commission 
was  reasonable,  fair,  and  just.  The  court  denied  the  appli- 
cation and  ordered  that  a  peremptory  writ  of  mandamus 
issue.  The  terms  of  the  writ  were  in  all  respects  in  accord- 
ance with  the  provisions  of  the  Minnesota  statute,  and 
directed  the  company  to  change  its  rates.  The  railroad  at 
once  took  the  case  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  on  writ  of  error  for  review.  The  cause  came  on 
for  hearing  at  the  October  term,  1889,  but  the  decision  was 
not  promulgated  until  March  24,  1890.  The  decision  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  Minnesota,  and  the  statute  upon 
which  it  was  based,  were  overthrown.  In  delivering  the 
opinion  of  the  court  Justice  Blatchford  says: 


THE    SUPKEME   COURT.  129 

*'The  question  of  the  reasonableness  of  a  rate  of  charge 
for  transportation  by  a  railroad  company,  involving  as  it 
does  the  elemeDt  of  reasonableness  both  as  regards  the 
company  and  as  regards  the  public,  is  eminently  a  question 
for  judicial  investigation,  requiring  due  process  of  law  for 
its  determination.  If  the  company  is  deprived  of  the 
power  of  charging  reasonable  rates  for  the  use  of  its  prop- 
erty, and  such  deprivation  takes  place  in  the  absence  of  an 
investigation  by  judicial  machinery,  it  is  deprived  of  the 
lawful  use  of  its  property,  and  thus,  in  substance  and 
effect,  of  the  property  itself,  without  due  process  of  law 
and  in  violation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States; 
and  in  so  far  as  it  is  thus  deprived,  while  other  persons  are 
permitted  to  receive  reasonable  profits  upon  their  invested 
capital,  the  company  is  deprived  of  the  equal  protection  of 
the  laws.     *    *     * 

"The  issuing  of  the  peremptory  writ  of  mandamus  in 
this  case  was,  therefore,  unlawful,  because  in  violation  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.'' 

No  point  is  made  by  the  Court  that  it  is  not  within  the 
power  of  the  Legislature  to  authorize  a  commission  to  fix 
arbitrarily  the  rates.  The  law  is  held  to  be  void  because  it 
did  not  provide  for  a  judicial  investigation  as  to  the  rea- 
sonableness of  the  rates.  For  that  reason  they  hold  that 
the  company  was  deprived  of  its  property  without  due 
process  of  law,  and  so,  by  precisely  the  same  reasoning, 
it  would  have  been  if  the  Legislature  had  itself,  by  statute, 
fixed  the  rate  at  two-and-a-half  cents  per  gallon. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  the  Court  does  not  cite  a 
single  authority  in  this  case  in  support  of  its  decision.  It 
may  well  be  silent;  for  by  means  of  this  ruling  the  Court 
has  retraced  its  steps  and  quietly  returned  to  the  ground 
occupied  by  Justice  Field  and  the  other  dissenting  judges, 
in  the  Grange  cases,  in  1876. 

Mr.  Justice  Bradley,  the  only  surviving  member  of  the 
Court  who  concurred  in  the  Grange  decisions,  delivered  a 

9 


130  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

dissenting  opinion  in  this  case,  in  which  Justices  Gray  and 
Lamar  concurred.     We  quote  from  it  as  follows: 

*'I  can  not  agree  to  the  decision  of  the  court  in  this  case. 
It  practically  overrules  Mann  vs.  Illinois  (94  U.  S.,  113), 
and  the  several  railroad  cases  that  were  decided  at  the 
same  time  (the  Grange  cases).  The  governing  principle  of 
those  cases  was  that  the  regulation  and  settlement  of  the 
fares  of  railroads  and  other  public  accommodations  is  a 
legislative  prerogative  and  not  a  judicial  one.  This  is  a 
principle  which  i  regard  as  of  great  importance.  When  a 
railroad  company  is  chartered,  it  is  for  the  purpose  of  per- 
forming a  duty  which  belongs  to  the  State  itself.  It  is  its 
duty  and  its  prerogative  to  provide  means  of  intercom- 
munication betu'een  one  part  of  its  territory  and  another 
and  this  duty  is  devolved  upon  the  legislative  department." 

"In  the  case  of  Davidson  vs.  City  of  New  Orleans  (96 
U.  S.,  97),  we  decided  that  the  appointment  of  a  Board  of 
Assessors  for  assessing  damages  was  not  only  due  process 
of  law,  but  the  proper  method  for  making  assessments  to 
distribute  the  burden  of  a  public  work  amongst  those  who 
are  benefited  by  it.  No  one  questions  the  constitutionality 
or  propriety  of  boards  for  assessing  property  for  taxation, 
or  for  the  improvement  of  streets,  sewers  and  the  like,  or 
of  commissions  to  establish  county  seats,  and  for  doing 
many  other  things  appertaining  to  the  administrative  man- 
agement of  public  affairs.  Due  process  of  law  does  not 
always  require  a  court.  It  merely  requires  such  tribunals 
and  proceedings  as  are  proper  to  the  subject  in  hand.  In 
the  Kailroad  Commission  Cases  (116  U.  S.,  307,)  we  held 
that  a  Board  of  Commissioners  is  a  proper  tribunal  for 
determining  the  proper  rates  of  fare  and  freight  on  the 
railroads  of  a  State.  It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  that  the 
law  of  Minnesota  did  not  prescribe  anything  that  was  not 
in  accordance  with  due  process  of  law  in  creating  such  a 
board,  and  investing  it  with  the  powers  in  question." 

"It  is  complained  that  the  decisions  of  the  board  are 
final  and  without  appeal.  So  are  the  decisions  of  the 
Courts  in  the  matters  within  their  jurisdiction.  There  must 
be  a  final  tribunal  somewhere  for  deciding  every  question 
in  the  world.     Injustice   may  take  place  in  all  tribunals. 


THE    SUPREME    COUKT.  131 

All  human  institutions  are  imperfect — Courts  as  well  as 
Commissions  and  Leo^islatures.  Whatever  tribunal  has 
jurisdiction,  its  decisions  are  final  and  conclusive  unless  an 
appeal  is  given  therefrom.  The  important  question  always 
is,  what  is  the  lawful  tribunal  for  the  particular  case?  In 
my  judgment,  in  the  present  case,  the  proper  tribunal  was 
the  Legislature,  or  the  Board  of  Commissioners  which  it 
created  for  the  purpose." 

"I  am  authorized  to  say  that  Mr.  Justice  Gray  and  Mr. 
Justice  Lamar  agree  with  me  in  this  dissenting  opinion. " 

The  decision  in  this  case  created  great  indignation  among 
the  people  of  Minnesota,  and  indeed  throughout  the  whole 
country  where  its  full  meaning  was  understood. 

Incidents  which  point  to  a  rapidly  approaching  National 
crisis  are  now  almost  of  daily  occurrence.  The  constant 
accretion  of  power  resulting  from  the  disposition  of  this 
Court  to  amplify  its  own  jurisdiction,  to  obliterate  State 
authority,  to  deny  the  power  of  the  States  to  regulate  their 
own  affairs,  to  set  bounds  to  the  exactions  of  their  own 
domestic  corporations  and  to  deny  to  Congress  the  author- 
ity to  interpret  the  Constitution  for  itself,  are  among  the 
ever  recurring  and  ominous  phenomena  of  our  day.  Mr. 
Jefferson  said  this  Court  would  become  a  despotism  if 
accorded  the  power  which  it  claimed.  "We  may  well  inquire 
whether  his  prediction  has  not  been  fulfilled. 

Are  we  never  to  know  what  our  Constitution  means? 
It  is  made  to«  signify  one  thing  to-day  and  another  to- 
morrow. The  Court  interprets  it  and  that  stands,  perhaps, 
as  the  law  for  generations.  Meantime  the  State  legisla- 
tures, State  courts.  Congresses,  Executives,  heads  of  depart- 
ments— in  fact  the  whole  people  accept  it  and  mould  their 
institutions  accordingly.  Finally  new  light  is  discovered 
and  a  new  interpretation  evolved,  and  institutions,  whose 
growth  has  extended  through  the  greater  part  of  the  Cen- 
tary,  are  plucked  up  by  the  roots  and  the  social  structure 


132  A   CALL-  TO-  ACTION. 

turned  upside  down,  We  have  a  written  Constitution,  but 
the  slave  power  claimed  it  for  its  own.  Of  late  corpora- 
tions have  taken  refuge  behind  it.  It  will  be  the  dawning 
of  a  glorious  day  when  the  monopoly-ridden  people  shall 
be  able  to  use  it  as  their  own  shield  and  buckler.  But  as 
at  present  interpreted,  when  we  want  fixedness  of  law  we 
find  ourselves  standing  upon  shifting  sands,  and  the  juris- 
prudence of  one  generation  becomes  the  pitfall  of  the  next. 

SUPREME  POWER  IN  THE  STATE  DEFINED. 

Municipal  law  is  defined  by  all  writers  on  jurisprudence, 
to  be  a  rule  of  action  prescribed  by  the  supreme  power  in 
a  State.  Hence,  it  fallows  that  the  supreme  power  is  the 
legislative — the  law-making  power.  The  Judiciary  is  cer- 
tainly not  the  supreme  power  in  the  State.  Manifestly  it 
is  a  subordinate  power.  Its  office  is  to  interpret  the  will 
of  the  Legislature  and  to  issue  final  process  to  make  that 
will  effective.  In  the  absence  of  an  express  Constitutional 
provision,  the  interpretation  given  to  that  instrument  by 
the  law-making  department  should  control.  Indeed  this  is 
the  theory  upon  which  the  courts  profess  to  proceed,  but  it 
is  not  the  practice.  Both  the  law-maker  and  the  judge  take, 
an  oath  to  support  the  Constitution,  and  there  is  nothing  to 
interpret  until  the  legislative  department  has  acted.  The 
legislator  must  necessarily  first  interpret  the  Constitution. 
In  case  of  difference  of  opinion  between  the  legislator  and 
the  judge,  the  legislative  interpretation  should  stand,  for 
the  reason  that  the  Court  is  not  the  advisor  of  the  Legisla- 
ture, but  merely  translates  its  will.  Should  the  Legislature 
err,  the  wrong  can  be  righted  by  an  appeal  to  the  people 
and  to  the  ballot-box;  but  who  shall  deliver  us  from  the 
errors  and  usurpations  of  the  Court  of  Last  Resort,  since 
they  hold  their  positions  by  the  life  tenure  and  are  not 
subiect  to  elective  control ! 


THE   SUPREME   COURT.  133 

The  most  embarrassing  feature  of  American  civilization — 
the  real  danger  point  in  this  era,  is  to  be  found  lurking  just 
where  the  last  generation  found  it — in  the  conflict  between 
the  Legislative  and  the  Judicial  departments  of  the  Gov- 
ernment. Every  reform  now  pressing  for  recognition 
before  the  people  and  our  law  making  bodies,  State  and 
National,  is  liable  to  find  a  foe  ambushed  in  our  Imperial 
Supreme  Court.  Freedom  has  been  fired  upon  before  from 
this  same  fortress  and  she  is  likly  to  again  encounter  a  sim- 
ilar experience.  Henry  Clews,  a  prominent  capitalist  of 
New  York,  in  one  of  his  weekly  circulars  sent  out  to  bank- 
ing and  speculative  circles  February  Yth,  1891,  said: 

"It  is  true  that,  alongside  these  unexpected  favorable 
developments  in  railroad  interests,  there  is  the  dishearten- 
ing revival  of  hostile  State  legislation  both  by  the  Grangers 
and  Farmers'  Alliance;  bat  these  attempts  will  be  met  with 
a  thoroughness  of  opposition  and  with  an  application  of 
Constitutional  tests,  both  State  and  Federal,  which  will  at 
least  soon  settle  for  the  whole  country  what  can  and  what 
cannot  be  done  by  this  destructive  sort  of  warfare.  The 
probability  seems  to  be,  within  a  few  months,  there  will  be 
a  great  body  of  legal  decisions  showing  that  the  farmers' 
conception  of  what  constitutes  '  reasonable  charges '  for  car- 
riage is  something  very  different  from  the  conception  of  the 
courts. " 

We  distinctly  remember  that  this  same  Court  and  Dred 
Scott  once  differed  in  their  conceptions  of  human  rights 
under  our  Constitution.  But  Dred  Scott's  views  are  now 
generally  accepted.  It  is  probable  that  the  controversy 
between  the  farmers  and  the  Court  will  end  in  the  same 
way. 

The  constant  friction  between  our  highest  legislative 
bodies  and  the  Court  is  calculated  to  precipitate  a  danger- 
ous conflict  just  at  the  point  where  we  have  the  right  to 
expect  fixedness  and  tranquility.     The  assumptions  of  the 


134:  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

Court  exalt  the  Judicial  above  the  Legislative  poTver  and 
introduce  into  Society  confusion  and  distrust.  It  is  the 
destruction  of  the  very  thing  which  we  aim  to  secure  by 
Popular  Government.  It  dethrones  the  people  who  should 
be  Sovereign  and  enthrones  an  oligarchy.  The  warning 
uttered  by  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  the  letter  set  forth  in  this  chap- 
ter, was  the  result  of  his  unclouded  knowledge  of  human 
nature  and  of  his  clear  comprehension  of  the  functions  of 
Democratic  Government. 

The  latest  case  which  has  come  to  the  attention  of  the 
writer  is  that  of  Charles  Counselman  vs.  Frank  Hitchcock, 
Marshal  of  the  Northern  District  of  Illinois,  decided  early 
in  January,  1892.  Counselman  is  a  wealthy  grain  dealer, 
engaged  in  operating  elevators  and  buying  and  shipping 
grain.  It  was  charged  that  he  was  receiving  special  rates 
or  rebates  from  the  railroads  for  the  shipment  of  his  pro- 
duce. He  was  directed  to  appear  before  the  Inter-State 
Commission  and  testify  touching  the  matter.  He  declined 
to  do  so  on  the  ground  that  he  was  a  member  of  the  com- 
pany and  could  not  be  compelled  to  testify  against  himself. 
The  decision  sustains  Counselman.  This  ruling  exhibits 
the  utter  folly  of  attempting  to  harmonize  individual  ava- 
rice with  the  public  welfare,  and  it  practically  nullifies  the 
Inter-State  Commerce  law.  This  is  probably  one  of  the 
decisions  which  Mr.  Clews  promised  was  in  store  for  the 
people. 

It  is  hoped  that  the  thoughts  expressed  and  facts  por- 
trayed in  this  chapter  may,  in  some  degree,  aid  in  arousing 
the  people  to  a  sense  of  the  serious  dangers  which  now  con- 
front them.  Courts  should  be  held  to  their  proper  sphere 
as  interpreters  of  the  law.  It  was  not  intended  that  they 
should  blossom  into  law  makers.  When  the  Constitution 
is  silent  Congress  must  be  the  sole  judge  of  its  own  implied 
powers.     State  Legislatures  must  also  be  permitted  to  pro- 


THE    SUPREME    COURT.  135 

tect  the  pe.ople  from  corporate  tyranny.  A  Century  of 
experience  shows  that  new  safeguards  should  be  provided 
and  the  great  Tribunal  must  be  brouorht  back  to  a  sense  of 
its  accountability  to  the  people. 


Note— Mr.  Justice  Bradley  died  while  this  work  was  In  press.  This  leaves 
the  Court  without  a  single  member  who  concurred  in  the  Qirange  decisions 
of  1876. 


CHAPTKR    IV. 


IMPROVIDENT  DISPOSAL  OF  PUBLIC  LANDS. 

All  men  have  a  natural  right  to  a  portion  of  the  soil;  and 
as  the  use  of  the  soil  is  indispensable  to  life,  the  right  of  all 
men  to  the  soil  is  as  sacred  as  their  right  to  life  itself. 

The  public  lands  of  the  United  States  belong  to  the  peo- 
ple and  should  not  be  sold  to  individuals  nor  granted  to 
corporations,  but  should  be  held  as  a  sacred  trust  for  the 
benefit  of  the  people  and  should  be  granted  in  limited 
quantities,  free  of  cost  to  landless  settlers. — Free  Soil 
Platform,  1852. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  Government  the  broad  ex- 
panse of  National  territory  was  regarded  merely  as  a  source 
of  revenue.  To  realize  money  from  the  sale  of  lands 
would  relieve  the  people  of  an  equal  amount  of  taxes.  In 
order  therefore  that  taxes  might  be  light,  the  possessors  of 
private  wealth  were  allowed  to  possess  themselves  of  pub- 
lic lands  at  nominal  prices  and  without  limit  of  quantity. 
The  subsequent  purchasers — the  farmer  and  producer — 
forestalled  by  the  private  cash  purchaser  from  the  Govern- 
ment, had  therefore  to  pay,  in  the  price  given  by  him,  not 
only  the  taxes  which  the  people  escaped,  but  interest  as 
well,  and  as  much  profit  as  the  transaction  would  bear. 
This  was  the  "political  economy"  of  the  period — the  ortho- 
dox political  economy  of  all  periods — the  principle  being 
to  relieve  accumulated  property  from  all  burdens,  and  to 
place  all  accumulated  burdens  upon  labor  and  production. 


IMPBOVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  137 

The  first  method  adopted,  therefore,  for  the  disposal  of 
public  lands  was  by  public  and  private  sale.  This  system 
was  applied  to  the  Northwest  territory,  then  to  land  south 
of  the  Ohio  River,  then  to  the  Louisiana  purchase  and  to 
Florida,  and  finally  to  California.  Con.o;ress  apparently 
forgot  to  apply  it  to  New  Mexico,  Utah,  Colorado  and 
other  States  and  Territories,  or  portions  of  them,  outside  of 
the  Louisiana  purchase;  but  this  slight  omission  in  the  law 
was  remedied  by  the  Interior  Department,  which,  without 
legal  authority,  offered  and  disposed  of  at  public  and  pri- 
vate sale  much  valuable  land  in  those  regions.  Under  the 
cash  system,  a  large  portion  of  land  in  the  earlier  public 
land  States,  as  well  as  in  the  later  ones,  was  sold  to  capit- 
alists and  speculators.  As  population  increased  the  de- 
mand for  land  increased  and  various  expedients  were 
adopted  to  more  rapidly  dispossess  the  United  States  of  its 
priceless  public  domain.  And  in  all  these  expedients,  some 
good  on  their  face,  and  others  flagranti}'-  bad  at  the  start, 
speculation  and  monopoly  were  fostered  and  encouraged  at 
the  expense  of  actual  tillage  of  the  soil.  The  pre-emption 
law,  originally  devised  for  the  protection  of  settlers  against 
cash  purchasers,  was  soon  made  the  instrumentality  of  ob- 
taining lands  for  speculation.  The  first  development  of 
systematic  fraud  under  this  law  was  in  the  South,  the 
attention  of  Congress  having  been  called  to  pre-emption 
frauds  in  Mississippi  as  early  as  1843,  when  a  statute  was 
passed  for  local  investigation.     (5th  Statutes,  519.) 

The  issue  of  Military  bounty  land  warrants,  consequent 
upon  the  war  with  Mexico,  opened  a  wide  field  of  specula- 
tion. With  the  usual  short-sightedness  of  small  economists 
it  was  thought  a  world  of  wisdom  to  save  money  to  the 
Treasury  by  giving  land  bounties  to  soldiers  instead  of 
cash.  These  bounties  did  the  soldier  little  good.  Land 
warrants   calling  for  one  hundred   and  sixty  acres  were 


138  A   CAIX   TO   ACTION. 

sold  for  $50,  and  years  passed  before  the  soldiers  realized 
so  much  as  $100  for  their  warrants.  The  small  sums  of 
money  received  by  them  were  the  merest  trifles,  but  the 
lands  passed  to  large  land  holders  and  served  to  build  up 
great  plantations  in  the  South,  and  to  augment  speculative 
holdings  in  the  West  by  securing  individual  control  of  val- 
uable lands  through  the  location  of  such  warrants.  Mili- 
tary warrants  to  the  amount  of  seventy  million  acres, 
covering  an  area  as  large  as  the  six  New  England  States, 
with  New  York  added,  have  been  issued  by  the  United 
States,  very  few  of  which  have  ever  been  located  on  land 
by  the  soldiers  themselves  or  their  heirs.  They  were  made 
assignable  for  speculative  purposes,  and,  being  assignable, 
were  used  in  a  vast  number  of  cases  for  purposes  of  specu- 
lation and  monopoly. 

In  1854,  a  gigantic  land  scheme,  to  acquire  public  lands 
in  quantity  for  next  to  nothing  in  price,  was  consummated 
by  the  passage  of  the  "graduation  act,"  by  which  lands 
that  had  been  in  market  for  certain  terms  of  years  were 
sold  at  prices  ranging  down  from  $1.00  to  twelve-and-a-half 
cents  per  acre.  Twenty-five  million  acres  were  sold  at 
these  prices,  chiefly  in  the  South,  before  the  war. 

Following  the  cash  and  pre-emption  system  and  the 
bounty  land  expedient,  came  the  colossal  swamp  land 
grant,  State  grants  for  various  purposes,  and  railroad  land 
grants,  through  all  of  which  bodies  of  land  larger  than 
some  European  kingdoms  passed  into  the  hands  of  rich 
real  estate  owners.  Following  these  methods  of  despoiling 
the  Nation  of  its  public  lands  came  the  speculative  device 
of  Homestead  commutation,  the  Timber  culture  law,  the 
Desert  land  act,  and  a  great  variety  of  scrip  and*  other 
land  granting  schemes,  all  tending  to  the  one  common  end 
— robbery  of  the  public  lands. 


IMPROVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  139 

GKANTS  TO  STATES  FOE  PUBLIC  PURPOSES. 

The  policy  of  making  grants  of  land  to  new  States  upon 
their  admission  into  the  Union  has  been  regarded  as  com- 
mendable, and  the  results  of  such  donations  presumed  to 
be  beneficial  to  the  whole  community.  The  disadvantages 
do  not  appear  to  have  been  considered.  Guarantees  were 
not  usually  demanded  that  the  proceeds  should  be  used 
for  the  purposes  intended,  nor  was  care  taken  that  the 
States  got  the  full  benefit  of  the  proceeds.  .  Checks  were 
not  placed  upon  the  aggressive  cupidity  of  transferees  and 
agents,  to  prevent  fraudulent  claims  upon  the  United 
States  for  the  benefit  of  corporate  interests  succeeding  to 
the  State  grants.  And  greater  than  all,  the  advantages  to 
land  monopoly  and  the  additional  cost  of  the  land  to  its 
actual  inhabitants,  have  never  been  measured.  The 
granted  lands  for  the  most  part  have  been  obtained  by 
actual  occupants  and  cultivators,  from  speculative  pur- 
chasers from  the  States  or  their  grantees  to  whom  sales 
were  made  in  large  quantity.  The  low  price  at  which  the 
lands  have  been  sold  by  the  State  to  capitalists  and  the 
grants  which  have  been  made  by  the  States  to  corporations, 
have  served  the  purposes  of  speculation  and  monopoly 
and  thrown  resulting  burdens  upon  the  people.  That 
these  have  been  the  chief  uses  made  of  many  of  the  benefi- 
cient  grants,  conspicuously  the  internal  improvement, 
swamp,  agricultural  college,  and  school  indemnity  grants, 
is  indisputable. 

INTERNAL    IMPROVEMENT    GRANTS. 

It  is  well  known  that  these  grants  have,  as  a  rule,  been 
monopolized  by  capitalists  who  obtained  the  lands  from 
the  States  by  large  purchases  at  trifling  suras.  It  is  appre- 
hended that  in  some  of  the  States  it  would  be  difficult  to 


140  A   CALL  TO    ACTION. 

trace  the  disposition  of  the  internal  improvement  funds, 
while  there  is  no  evidence  in  possession  of  the  Govern- 
ment that  whatever  proceeds  were  derived  by  the  States 
were  used  for  the  purposes  intended.  But  there  is  little 
doubt  that  the  farmers  who  actually  obtained  the  lands  did 
80  only  at  speculative  prices,  and  that  the  Government 
donations  to  the  States  resulted  in  an  exaction  from  the 
farmers  of  the  whole  difference  between  Government 
prices  and  the  sums  actually  paid  by  them  to  speculators. 

THE   SWAMP   LAND   GKANT. 

This  grant  was  made  in  1849-50  to  enable  the  several 
States  then  in  the  Union  "to  construct  the  necessary  levees 
and  drains  to  reclaim  the  swamp  and  overflowed  lands 
therein."  It  was  supposed  that  the  grant  would  cover 
twenty-five  million  acres,  and  that  the  donation  would  sup- 
port vast  public  improvements  beneficial  to  the  States, 
particularly  to  those  on  the  Mississippi  River.  It  is  not 
known  that  any  such  improvements  resulted  from  the 
grant,  but  the  amount  of  lands  thus  far  claimed  under  it 
is  seventy-five  milllion  acres,  an  area  more  than  equal  to 
fifteen  states  of  the  size  of  Massachusetts,  of  which  forty- 
seven  million  five  hundred  thousand  acres  are  in  the  States 
of  Alabama,  Arkansas,  Florida,  Louisiana,  Mississippi 
and  Missouri,  and  twenty-eight  million  two  hundred  thou- 
sand acres  in  the  States  of  California,  Illinois,  Iowa,  Mich- 
igan, Minnesota,  Ohio,  Oregon  and  Wisconsin.  Fifty- 
eight  million  seven  hundred  thousand  acres  have  been 
( 1889 )  patented  or  certified  to  the  States,  and  about 
eighteen  million  acres,  equal  to  the  area  of  the  Territorial 
empire  of  Montana  were  pending  in  the  Land  Office  when 
this  chapter  was  written. 

This  grant  may  be  regarded  as  a  public  disaster  to  the 
States  receiving  it,  benefiting  chiefly  speculators  and  cor- 


IMPKOVrDENT  DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  141 

porations,  taking  away  from  the  people  homesteads  and 
settlement  rights  under  general  laws  of  the  United  States, 
and  resulting  in  no  appreciable  work  of  reclamation.  In 
some  instances,  as  in  Florida  and  Minnesota,  the  swamp 
grant  has  been  transferred  by  States  to  railroad  companies 
which  had  already  received  donations  of  land  greater  in 
market  value  than  the  actual  cost  of  the  construction  of  the 
roads;  and  it  appears  to  be  the  rule,  as  shown  by  the 
reports  of  the  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  OflSce, 
that  the  best  agricultural  iands  are  largely  claimed  and 
have  been  obtained  under  the  swamp  grant,  while  settlers 
seeking  such  lands  have  been  compelled  to  buy  at  specula- 
tive prices  from  the  holders  of  the  State  claims.  The  same 
rule  holds  good  as  to  timber  lands,  immense  grants  of 
which  have  been  acquired  by  States  under  this  grant,  dis- 
posed of  to  capitalists  and  timber  speculators,  at  nominal 
prices,  and  held  for  great  advances  in  value,  to  be  paid  by 
consumers. 

When  not  given  outright  to  corporations,  lands  have 
been  sold  to  first  purchasers  at  prices  ranging  from  twelve- 
and-a-half  cents  to  $1.00  per  acre.  At  what  prices  they 
get  into  the  hands  of  actual  inhabitants  can  only  be  con- 
jectured, but  may  be  estimated  to  rans^e  from  $5.00  to  $10 
per  acre  on  ordinary  private  sales,  up  to  whatever  price 
especially  valuable  lands  may  command.  The  States 
receive  an  average  of  say  from  fifty  to  sixty  cents  per 
acre,  while  the  actual  occupier  and  user  of  the  land  must 
pay  not  less  than  $5.00  per  acre,  as  a  low  average.  The 
account  then  stands  thus: 

Total  volume  of  grant  (acres) 75,000,000 

Possible  net  result  to  States $  45,000,000 

Probable  actual  cost  of  the  land  to  final  pur- 
chasers from  State  grantees $375,000,000 


142  A   CALL  TO   ACTION. 

Such  are  some  of  the  practical  results  of  the  swamp 
land  grant. 

Commissioner  Sparks  asserts  that  the  Swamp  land  grant 
has  been  a  prolific  source  of  fraud  and  corruption.  He 
says: 

"Personal  interest  has  prompted  the  grantees  of  the 
States  to  exert  all  possible  means  to  swell  their  claims,  and 
their  plans  have  been  made  largely  successful  by  the  aid  of 
a  loose  administration  of  the  laws. 

"  Agents  undertake  the  prosecution  of  the  claims  upon 
commissions,  amounting  in  some  cases  to  fifty  per  cent,  of 
the  proceeds,  and,  invested  with  authority  to  represent  the 
State,  make  selections  of  land  or  file  claims  for  indemnity, 
which  they  insist  is  due  the  State,  and  manage  to  enlist  the 
representatives  of  the  State  in  support  of  their  demands. 
They  have  thus  succeeded  in  carrying  their  selections 
through  and  obtaining  patents,  or  money  indemnity,  for 
many  tracts  of  land  which  are  as  valuable  for  agricultural 
purposes,  or  for  timber  or  minerals,  as  any  in  the  United 
States,  upon  the  alleged  ground  that  the  same  are  rendered 
unfit  for  cultivation  by  reason  of  their  swampy  character  or 
liability  to  overflow. 

""Experience  has  demonstrated  the  fact  that  reports  of 
former  agents  of  this  oflice  are  quite  generally  unreliable, 
and  in  nearly  every  case  a  re-examination  is  necessary  to 
ascertain  the  true  character  of  the  land. 

"Out  of  forty-five  tracts  in  Oregon  reported  to  be 
swamp  land  by  an  agent  of  this  ofiice  in  1888,  thirty-eight 
were  found,  upon  re-examination  by  the  present  agent,  to 
be  dry  land,  most  of  which  can  be  greatly  improved  by  irri- 
gation. 

"A  recent  report  shows  that  about  thirty-four  thousand 
acres  of  land  in  the  same  State,  approved  upon  the  reports 
of  a  former  agent,  were  fraudulently  reported  as  swamp, 
and  were  undoubtedly  not  within  the  terms  of  the  grant, 
being  mainly  hills,  mountains,  or  sage  brush  plains, 
selected  for  the  real  purpose  of  securing  the  approaches  to 
the  waters  of  lakes,  rivers  and  creeks.  The  most  unblush- 
ing frauds  have  been  practiced  in  the  selection  of  alleged 


IMPROVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF  PUBLIC   LANDS.  143 

swamp  lands  by  parties  claiming  as  purchasers  of  swamp 
lands  from  the  State.  By  means  of  false  aflSdavits,  fraudu- 
lent surveys,  and  bribery  of  ao;ents,  these  parties  have  man- 
aged to  obtain  control  of  most  of  the  lands  bordering  on 
lakes  and  water  courses,  shutting  out  intending  settlers 
from  access  to  water,  and  illegally  monopolizing  for  pas- 
turage thousands  of  acres  of  public  lands  without  payment 
of  a  dollar  to  the  Government;  and  settlers  who,  notwith- 
standing the  difficulty  of  obtaining  water,  have  gone  upon 
these  lands,  even  when  not  selected  as  swamp,  are  threat- 
ened and  often  driven  off  by  violence,  while  their  crops  are 
levied  upon  under  color  of  a  pretended  title  from  the  State. 
I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  report  that  six  indictments  for 
forger}^,  and  three  for  conspiracy  to  defraud  the  Govern- 
ment, have  been  found  against  persons  connected  with 
these  frauds,  and  only  regret  that  the  statute  of  limitation 
prevents  the  punishment  of  the  parties  who  have  realized 
the  most  of  the  profits  of  their  crimes."  (Land  Office 
Report,  188T,  p.  38.) 

Referring  to  similar  examples  in  1886,  the  Commis- 
sioner said: 

"  The  reckless  method  of  swamp  and  swamp-indemnity 
selection,  demonstrated  in  the  foregoing  examples,  which 
apparently  proceeds  upon  the  theory  that  no  claim  upon 
the  Government  can  be  too  excessive,  floods  this  office  with 
a  vast  amount  of  unnecessary  work,  and  involves  the  Gov- 
ernment in  a  continued  expense  in  establishing  by  exam- 
ination and  evidence  the  validity  or  falsity  of  claims  many 
of  which  are  prima  facie  without  merit. 

The  instances  above  cited  are  in  no  respect  exceptional. 
They  may  be  regarded  as  examples  of  the  general  char- 
acter of  swamp  land  and  swamp-land-indemnity  claims 
with  which  this  office  is  overwhelmed,  and  as  a  fair  index  of 
claims  which  for  vears  past  have  been  approved." — Land 
Office  Report  1886,  p.  J^. 

"Swamp  selections,  work  reservations  of  the  land  until 
the  alleged  claim  is  disposed  of,  and  settlers  are  compelled 
to  institute  contests  to  save  their  land  or  secure  the  right 
of  entry.     The  general  result  of  contests  against  existing;*' 


144  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

swamp-land  claims  is  that  in  75  per  cent  of  the  cases  tried, 
the  swamp  selection  is  rejected  upon  testimony  taken  at 
hearings,  thus  further  proving  the  unfounded  if  not  fraud- 
ulent character  of  the  original  selections." — Ibid,  p.  If,!. 

In  making  original  swamp  selections  it  appears  to  be  the 
present  practice  of  State  agents  to  select  the  entire  body  of 
lands  in  the  vicinity  of  rivers  and  creeks,  as  well  as  all 
classed  by  the  surveys  as  low,  wet  and  bottom  lands,  and 
to  demand  the  approval  by  this  department  of  such  claims. 
—Ibid]?.  J{.1. 

One-half  of  the  entire  area  of  Florida  is  claimed  under 
the  swamp  land  grant,  and  nearly  half  of  the  entire  state 
has  been  patented  under  that  grunt,  but  it  has  yet  to  be 
learned  that  the  State  has  ever  expended  one  dollar  of  the 
proceeds  in  the  reclamation  of  the  swamps  and  overflowed 
lands,  the  major  part  of  which  probably  remain  in  the 
Government,  it  being  pretty  well  understood  that  the  swamp 
claim  takes  the  good  land,  leaving  the  bad  to  be  hereafter 
developed  by  public  contribution.  In  this  state  the  grant 
was  transferred  by  the  Legislature  to  railroad  companies 
who  made  the  selections,  railroaded  the  patents  through  the 
Land  Office,  and,  with  their  agents  and  collusive  assignees, 
became  the  landed  proprietors  from  whom  those  seeking 
orange  groves  or  homes  in  Florida's  luxurious  climate  must 
make  their  purchases.  The  United  States  has  little  or  no 
good  land  to  dispose  of  in  Florida — the  railroads  have — 
but  the  condition  of  railroad  service  in  that  state  does  not 
indicate  that  the  proceeds  aro  used  for  any  public  ad- 
vantage. 

In  Illinois,  whose  proud  boast  it  is  that  there  are  no 
naturally  uncultivable  lands  in  its  broad  domain,  nearly 
one-eighth  of  its  territory  has  been  claimed  as  swamp.  In 
Wisconsin,  one-eighth  of  the  territory  of  the  state  has  been 
claimed  as  swamp.  In  Iowa,  one-eighth  is  so  claimed.  In 
Missouri,  more  than  one-tenth.    In  Michigan,  one-fifth.    In 


IMPROVIDENT   DISPOSAL    OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  14:5 

Arkansas,  one-third-  While  in  Louisiana  nearly  one-half 
of  all  the  land  in  the  state  has  been  solemnly  sworn  to  as 
''swamp  and  overflowed,  and  rendered  thereby  unfit  for 
cultivation."  In  this  state  it  is  understood  that  a  late  gov- 
ernor made  a  contract  with  his  brother  by  which  the  state 
pays  to  the  gubernatorial  relative  fifty  per  cent,  of  all  that 
can  be  obtained  from  the  United  States  under  the  swamp 
land  grant.  Other  States,  as  reported  by  the  Commissioner, 
are  said  to  pay  from  ten  and  fifteen  up  to  forty  per  cent, 
for  the  same  purpose.    (Land  Office  Keport  1885,  page  46.) 

These  agents  and  their  attorneys,  masquerading  in  the 
name  of  the  state,  and  sometimes  with  the  interested  in- 
fluence of  the  State  Executives  behind  them,  have  haunted 
Congress  for  years  to  procure  legislation  extending  the 
indemnity  provisions  of  the  swamp  land  grant  so  as  to 
cover  the  intervening  period  between  1867  and  the  present 
time. 

To  disclose  the  enormity  of  this  scheme,  its  utter  want  of 
foundation,  and  precisely  what  it  means,  it  is  necessary  to 
recur  to  the  original  measure. 

Upon  the  passage  of  the  swamp  land  act  in  1850,  the 
states  caused  selections  to  be  made  ^w  mass^  of  lands  claimed 
as  swamp,  sweeping  in  the  rich  arable  valleys,  and  the 
homes  and  improvements  of  thousands  of  settlers.  The 
Supreme  Court  with  its  customary  leanings  in  favor  of 
"grants,"  quickly  decided  that  the  swamp  act  made  a  grant 
inpresenti^  taking  effect  at  its  passage,  and  conveying  a 
perfect  title  by  operation  of  law.  Settlers  and  intending 
settlers  were  caught  in  the  toil.  Those  who  had  not  gone 
upon  and  selected  land  could  not  do  so,  although  they 
might  know  them  to  be  high  and  dry,  for  the  approval  of 
the  selections  by  the  General  Land  Office  and  the  Depart- 
•  ment  of  the  Interior  was  a  mere  matter  of  routine.     They 

10 


146  A   CALL  TO    ACTION. 

were  all  approved.  Those  who  had  gone  upon  good  agri- 
cultural land — and  it  may  be  safely  presumed  that  none  had 
gone  upon  any  other,  were  compelled  to  remove  or  buy 
their  lands  from  state  claimants.  In  some  cases  and  before 
the  doctrine  of  "present  grant"  had  culminated  in  the  can- 
cellation of  settlement  entries  conflicting  with  the  swamp 
claim,  a  few  patents  had  been  issued  to  settlers  for  lands 
embraced  in  the  subsequent  "swamp"  selections.  Here  was 
opportunity  for  magnifying  the  swamp  steal  under  the  pre- 
text of  "relieving  settlers,"  and  in  1855,  an  act  was  passed 
confirming  to  the  few  settlers  who  had  obtained  patents  the 
land  which  had  probably  belonged  to  them  without  confir- 
mation, and  allowing  the  states  indemnity  in  lands  or 
money,  as  the  case  might  be,  for  the  "swamplands  so  lost" 
to  the  grant,  at  the  same  time  adroitly  confirming  to  the 
states  all  their  selections  of  dry  land.  This  measure  was 
pending  two  years  before  its  passage,  during  which  time 
selections  of  dry  lands  were  crowded  into  the  Land  Office 
in  anticipation  of  such  result.  The  Surveyor  General  of 
Missouri,  protesting  at  the  time  against  the  passage  of  the 
"relieving"  act,  declared  that  if  it  became  a  law  "the 
mountain  tops  would  be  claimed  as  swamp."  The  act 
passed,  and  by  a  trick  of  legislative  legerdemain  was  after- 
wards extended  to  185T.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  pre- 
diction of  the  Surveyor  General  of  Missouri  became  literally 
true.     Commissioner  Sparks  says: 

"From  the  commencement  of  proceedings  under  the 
swamp-land  grant,  selections  have  been  made  to  include 
large  amounts  of  land  not  swamp,  and  by  the  acts  of 
March  2,  1855,  and  March  3,  1857,  Congress  sought  to 
close  the  matter  of  confirming  the  selections  that  had  been 
made  up  to  that  date.  Notwithstanding  this,  claims  for 
large  amounts  of  land  which  by  no  means  fell  within  the 
terms  of  the  original  grant  have  continually  been  pre- 
sented. 


IMPEOVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  147 

The  acts  of  March  2,  1855,  and  March  3,  185T,  also  pro- 
vided for  indemnity  for  swamp  and  overflowed  lands 
disposed  of  by  the  United  States  between  the  date  of  the 
grant  and  the  date  of  said  acts,  and,  through  the  practice 
of  presenting  broadcast  claims  under  these  acts,  $1,500,000 
in  money  has  already  been  drawn  from  the  Treasury,  and 
upwards  of  570,000  acres  of  land  patented  as  indemnity." 
—Land  Office  Report,  1887,  p.  37. 

THE    AGKICULTUEAL    COLLEGE  GKANT. 

This  was  the  best  regulated  of  all  the  grants  made  to  the 
States,  Congress  having  made  provision  in  the  act  to  secure 
the  college  funds,  but  in  this  case  as  in  others,  the  cost 
of  the  land  to  the  purchasers  from  the  grantees  of  the 
States  has  made  the  donation  an  expensive  experiment — to 
them.  A  total  of  about  ten  million  acres  has  been  granted 
for  Agricultural  Colleges.  The  aggregate  funds  derived 
by  the  States  from  this  source  amount  to  little  more  than 
seven  million  dollars.  (See  The  Public  Domain,  First 
Edition,  pp.  220-231,  and  subsequent  Land  Office  Ee- 
ports.)  The  average  is  about  75  cents  per  acre.  As  the 
great  body  of  the  locations  under  this  grant  was  made  at  a 
time  when  the  most  valuable  lands  of  the  Government 
were  subject  to  such  location,  and  as  selections  were  made 
of  choice  timber  lands  as  well  as  of  select  agricultural  lands, 
it  is  fair  to  estimate  that  but  a  small  portion  of  these  lands 
would  get  into  the  hands  of  final  purchasers  from  State 
grantees  at  a  less  price  than  five  dollars  per  acre.  In 
other  words  it  is  fair  to  say  that  to  put  seven  million  dol- 
lars into  Agricultural  College  funds  by  means  of  this 
grant,  has  probably  cost  the  farmers  and  producers  of  the 
country  nearly  $50,000,000  in  the  enhanced  price  they 
have  paid  for  their  lands  above  the  Government  price  at 
which  the  same  land  could  have  been  obtained,  had  there 
been  no  such  grant. 


148  A   CALL  TO    ACTION. 

INDEMNITY    AND    COMMUTATION   SCHOOL   GKANTS. 

In  1886  an  act  was  passed  giving  to  the  State  of  Nevada 
two  million  acres  of  land  to  be  selected  at  pleasure,  in  lien 
of  its  grant  of  sixteenth  and  thirty-sixth  sections  for  com- 
mon schools.  This  act  was  advocated  on  the  plausible 
ground  that  so  much  of  the  state  was  mountainous  and  the 
land  not  adapted  to  agriculture,  that  school  sections  in 
place  were  of  little  value,  and,  for  the  laudable  purpose  of 
promoting  education  the  state  should  be  permitted  to  give 
up  its  worthless  school  selections  and  to  select  good  land 
instead.  The  practical  result  is  thus  tersely  stated  in  the 
Keport  of  the  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office 
for  1886,  page  13: 

"The  grant  by  Congress  of  two  million  acres  to  be  selected 
by  the  State  in  lieu  of  sections  sixteen  and  thirty-six  will, 
it  is  believed,  absorh  the  whole  of^  and  probably  more  tha/n, 
the  available  agricultural  lands  and  principal  sources  of 
water  supply^  leaving  the  eemaindek  of  the  lands  of  the 

STATE    PKACTIGALLY   IN    THE   POSSESSION    OR    CONTKOL   OF   THE 

purchasers  of  the  state  SCHOOL  LANDS.  The  surveys  that 
are  urged  in  this  State  are  desired  chiefly  for  thp  benefit  of 
such  purchasers.  The  result  of  this  legislation  and  situa- 
tion must  necessarily  be  the  prevention  of  the  settlement  of 
tJie  country  and  the  permanent  industrial  and  political 

CONTROL  OF  THE  STATE  BY  A  SMALL  BODY  OF  LAND  SYNDICATES 
AND   CATTLE   CORPORATIONS." 

It  is  understood  as  a  fact  that  large  schemes  had  been 
organized  in  pursuance  of  the  plan  of  seizing  the  State 
under  this  legislation  which  was  pretended  to  be  for  the 
benefit  of  common  schools,  and  that  the  United  States  Sur- 
veyor General  was  one  of  the  parties  having  large  contracts 
for  the  purchase  of  schooi  lands;  also  that  he  had  caused 
certain  lands  to  be  retained  as  surveyed  in  order  to  consum- 
mate purchases,  and  that  this  particular  branch  of  the  con-  ^ 


IMPEOVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  149 

spiracy  was  defeated  by  the  discovery  that  the  surveys  were 
fraudulent.     (Land  Office  Keport,  1887,  pp.  236  to  240.) 

Concurrently,  also,  with  the  passage  of  "The  Lien  Act" 
a  special  appropriation  of  $30,000  was  made  "for  the  sur- 
vey of  public  lands  in  Colorado,"  which  the  schemers 
expected  to  utilize  for  their  purposes,  and  it  is  shown  by 
the  Land  Office  Kecords  that  the  Surveyor  General  urged 
the  speedy  use  of  the  money  to  enable  the  State  to  sell  the 
lien  land,  which  meant  to  enable  the  syndicates  to  make 
ring  purchases  of  these  lands.  It  appears  that  the  money 
was  not  used  as  these  persons  desired,  and  this  caused  a 
virulent  Senatorial  attack  upon  the  Land  Office  at  the  next 
session  of  Congress,  showing  the  disappointment  then 
experienced.  It  is  inevitable  that  the  lien  grant  to  Nevada 
must  be  the  perpetual  curse  of  that  State,  since  it  places  in 
the  possession  of  capitalistic  purchasers  the  most  available 
lands  susceptible  of  cultivation  and  a  monopoly  of  the 
waters  of  the  State.  The  future  tiller  of  the  soil  must  per- 
force become  a  serf  of  the  land  barons  created  by  this 
school  grant. 

ALABAMA  COAL  AND  IKON  LANDS. 

In  1881-2-3  an  extensive  conspiracy  was  developed,  hav- 
ing for  its  purpose  the  capture  and  monopoly  of  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  acres  of  valuable  coal  and  iron  lands  in 
Alabama  through  fraudulent  pre-emption  and  homestead 
entries.  Foreign  capital  to  the  amount  of  millions  of  dol- 
lars was  enlisted  in  this  "business  enterprise."  Investiga- 
tions were  made  by  agents  of  the  Land  Office,  and  numer- 
ous suits,  civil  and  criminal,  were  brought  against  the 
wealthy  perpetrators  of  the  frauds.  It  was  necessary  that 
something  should  be  done  to  save  the  "interests  of  capital," 
and  to  protect  "vested  rights,"  which  had  been  acquired 
by  fraud  and  perjury.     Accordingl}^  a  bill  was  introduced 


150  A   CALL  TO    ACTION. 

in  Congress  to  "relieve  the  State  of  Alabama  from  the 
operation  of  the  mineral  laws."  This  bill  became  a  "Sen- 
atorial issue,"  and  was  carried  through  by  the  personal 
efforts  of  distinguished  statesmen,  representing  the  coal 
and  iron  companies,  and  became  a  law  in  1883,  but  not,  as 
understood,  until  certain  other  distinguished  statesmen  had 
been  admitted  to  a  share  in  speculative  enterprises  con- 
nected therewith. 

The  object  of  this  act  was  to  dismiss  all  pending  suits 
and  investigations,  charge  up  to  profit  and  loss  account  of 
the  Government,  the  large  sums  of  money  that  had  been 
expended  in  futile  efforts  to  protect  these  valuable  lands, 
and  to  turn  over  to  capitalists  whole  counties  of  coal  fields 
and  vast  beds  of  iron  ore  at  $1.25  per  acre,  instead  of  com- 
pelling them  to  pay  $5  per  acre  for  iron  lands  and  $10 
and  $20  per  acre  for  coal  lands,  as  the  mineral  laws  re- 
quired. A  small  body  of  the  lands,  perhaps  from  fifty 
thousand  to  one  hundred  thousand  acres,  was,  however, 
not  at  once  included  in  the  surrender.  These  were  lands 
that  had  been  specially  reported  upon,  and  it  was  provided 
as  to  such,  that  they  should  not  be  open  to  entry  until  first 
offered  at  public  sale.  The  purpose  of  this  provision  was, 
of  course,  to  secure  the  specially  reported  lands  in  bulk  at 
private  entry  at  $1.25  per  acre.  But  a  hitch  occurred  as  to 
this  remnant  of  the  great  Alabama  coal  and  iron  land  steal. 
Distinguished  gentlemen  who  had  presented  this  bill  and 
secured  its  passage  were  urgent  that  the  contemplated  sale 
should  be  made!  Other  gentlemen,  not  so  distinguished 
perhaps,  but  claiming  to  represent  the  people  of  the  State, 
succeeded  in  delaying  the  proceedings.  The  knot  of  the 
difficulty  was,  however,  cut  in  a  very  simple  manner.  In 
1884  an  act  had  been  passed  increasing  the  endowment  of 
the  University  of  Afebama  by  an  additional  grant  of  land, 


IMPKOVIDENT  DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  151 

and  by  a  recent  decision  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior 
the  reserved  mineral  lands  are  allowed  to  be  selected.  So, 
under  the  disguise  of  "University  selections,"  the  vast 
remaining  mineral  lands  in  Alabama  passed  to  the 
wealthy  combinations. 

KAILKOAD   LAND    GRANTS. 

The  seizure  of  public  lands  by  corporations  and  capital- 
ists through  the  medium  of  Congressional  grants  professedly 
made  "to  aid  in  the  construction  of  railroads,"  has  been  a 
striking  example  of  reckless  legislation,  of  flagrant  disre , 
gard  of  public  interests,  and  of  the  corrupting  power  of 
money  to  procure  gigantic  steals,  enlarge  the  robberies 
by  Executive  administration,  and  protect  the  plunderers  by 
judicial  decisions.  The  blackest  pages  in  the  history  of 
legislative,  administrative  and  judicial  procedure  in  this 
country  are  undoubtedly  connected  with  the  railroad  land 
grant  system.  The  total  amount  of  land  embraced  in  un- 
forfeited  railroad  land  grants  is  estimated  at  one  hundred 
and  lifty  million  acres,  an  area  exceeding  that  of  the  com- 
bined states  of  Maine,  JSTew  Hampshire,  Yermont, 
Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  New  York, 
JSTew  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  Maryland  and  Vir- 
ginia, nearly  one  hundred  million  of  which  is  forfeitable 
under  the  granting  acts. 

In  his  annual  report  for  1885,  pp.  44,  45,  Commissioner 
Sparks  discussing  this  point,  said: 

The  matter  of  declaring  these  forfeitures  and  restoring 
the  forfeited  lands  to  the  public  domain  is  prominently 
before  the  country,  and  has  awakened  and  excites  keen 
public  interest.  The  amount  of  unpatented  lands  em- 
braced in  all  the  grants  subject  to  declaration  of  forfeiture 
is  estimated  at  one  hundred  million  acres,  an  area  equal  to 
ihat  of  the  combined  States  of  New  York  New  Jersej^,  Penn- 
sylvania, Delaware,  Maryland  and  Yi^inia.     The  restora- 


152  A    CALL   TO   ACTION. 

tion  to  public  settlement  and  entry  of  this  great  body  of 
lands  is  a  subject  of  the  first  magnitude  and  of  profound 
National  importance.     The  question  presented  is  strictly 
one  of  legal  right.     The  rights  of  the  corporations   have 
been  upheld  for  twenty  and  thirty  years.     The  Govern- 
ment has  not  been  in  laches.    The  lands  have  been  kept  in 
reservation,   material  for  building    the    roads    has   been 
freely  supplied  from  the  public  domain,  and  extensions  of 
time  for  constructions  have  been  allowed.     The  default  of 
the  companies  has  been  voluntary.     The  rights  of  the  pub- 
lic are  now  to  be  considered — the  right  of  the  people  to 
repossess  themselves  of  their  own.     The  case  is  not  one 
calling  for  sympathy  for  the  corporations;  it  is  one  calling 
for  justice  to  the  people  of  the  country.     In  the  manage- 
ment of  their  grants,  as  of  their  roads,  railroad  companies 
have  shown  little  sympathy  for  the  public — none  for  set- 
tlers and  citizens  whose  presence  and  labor  were  building 
up  traffic,  and  whose  earnings  were  paying  all  the  traffic 
would   bear  over  roads    constructed   by   public   bounty. 
Holding  their  own  claims  through  the  indulgence  of  the 
Government,  delinquent  corporations  have  pursued  settlers 
with  the  strong  forces  of  corporate  power,  not  only  from 
local  tribunals  to  the  executive  department,  but  from  the 
executive  department  to  the  courts,  to  wrest  from  them  the 
homes  they  had  acquired  within  the  boundaries  of  railroad 
grants.     It  is  my  information  that  a  patent  from  the  United 
States  to  a  settler  under  an  award  by  adjudication  of  this 
department  is  not  security  to  his  rights  against  a  railroad 
company,    but   that  the  policy  of  compelling  settlers  to 
defend  their  patents  in  the  Courts  has  been  systematically 
adopted  by  some  of  the   companies  having  the  largest 
grants  and  being  in  laches  to  the  government  in  respect  to 
their  own  obligations.     Appeals  have  been  made  to  me  by 
holders  of  such  patents,  asking  for  aid  I  had  no  means  to 
give,  in  defense  of  their  titles,  which  they  said  they  could 
not  maintain  at  their  own  cost  acrainst  vexatious,  dilatory, 
and  expensive  proceedings,  forced  upon  them  to  compel 
them  to  purchase  from  the  companies  the  quiet  of  the  titles 
which  they  had,  after  protracted  struggle,  obtained  from 
the  United   States?^     Those  who   seek   equity  should   do 


IMPROVIDENT   DISPOSAL    OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  153 

equity;    those   who   demand    charity   should    show   some 
regard  for  the  rights  of  others  and  of  their  donors. 

"It  is  my  opinion  that  the  right  and  power  vested  in 
Congress  of  enforcing  the  forfeitures  that  have  been 
incurred  should  be  exercised.  A  failure  or  refusal  to  exer- 
cise the  legislative  jurisdiction  may  be  construed  as  a  con- 
tinuance or  renewal  of  the  grants.  I  misunderstand  the 
sGntnneut  and  mistake  the  temper  of  the  people  if  renewals 
of  forfeited  land  grants  in  any  form  or  manner  is  in  conso- 
nance with  their  views  of  public  policy  or  their  demands 
for  public  justice. 

"However  improvident  the  original  grants  were,  the 
Government  was  bound  to  maintain  its  obligations  so  long 
as  the  companies  kept  theirs.  But  the  failure  of  one  party 
is  the  release  of  the  other.  An  opportunity  is  now  pre- 
sented for  the  legal  recovery  of  a  public  estate  long  held 
in  abeyance.  Having  been  forfeited,  it  should  now  be 
resumed.  I  respectfully  recommend  that  forfeitures  be 
declared  in  all  cases  in  which  the  roads  were  not  completed 
in  the  manner  and  within  the  time  prescribed  by  law, 
and  that  the  unpatented  lands  be  restored  to  the  public 
domain." 

Eailroad  grants  in  the  State  of  Iowa  cover  an  area  larger 
in  size  than  the  surface  of  the  two  States  of  Connecticut 
and  Rhode  Island.  In  each  of  the  States  of  Michigan  and 
Wisconsin  an  area  nearly  as  large.  Railroad  grants  in  Min- 
nesota would  make  two  States  just  the  size  of  Massachu- 
setts, one  of  which  was  donated  to  the  promoters  of  the 
Northern  Pacific  Railroad  Company.  In  Kansas,  railroad 
grants  would  make  the  two  States  of  Connecticut  and  New 
Jersey.  In  Nebraska,  a  territory  larger  than  the  State  of 
New  Hampshire  is  given  to  railroad  companies.  Three 
Siates  of  the  size  of  New  Hampshire  could  be  carved  out  of 
railroad  grants  in  California.  Another  New  Hampshire 
is  found  within  railroad  limits  in  Oregon,  and  the  State  of 
Rhode  Island  could  be  placed  in  the  Oregon  wagon  road 
grants.     In  Dakota  the  Northern  Pacific  gets  as  much  land 


164  A    CALL  TO   ACTION. 

as  there  is  in  the  two  States  of  New  Jersey  and  Connecti- 
cut. In  Montana  the  grant  to  the  same  company  is  as 
large  as  the  whole  of  Maryland,  New  Jersey,  and  Massa- 
chusetts. In  Idaho  the  same  company  gets  a  State  of 
Delaware,  and  in  Washington  Territory  its  grant  equals  in 
extent  the  size  of  the  three  States  of  New  Jersey,  New 
Hampshire  and  Massachusetts. 

It  was  held  by  Commissioner  Sparks  that  this  company 
had  absolutely  no  legal  rights  whatever  to  an  acre  of  land 
west  of  the  Missouri  river,  for  the  reason  not  only  that  no 
road  was  built  west  of  the  river,  but  that  no  road  west  of 
the  river  was  even  definitely  located  until  after  the  time 
when  by  law  and  contract  the  time  for  construction  had 
expired,  and  hence  that  no  legal  rights  attached.  These 
could  vest  only  upon  definite  location  and  definite  location 
could  not  be  made  after  the  expiration  of  the  grant.  He 
found  no  equities  in  the  company  to  lands  west  of  the 
Missouri,  because  the  lands  east  of  the  river,  if  the  com- 
pany were  allowed  to  retain  them,  exceeded  by  far  the 
actual  cost  of  constructing  the  whole  road.  Is  it  any 
wonder  that  Sparks  and  LcBarnes  had  to  go  ? 

The  reckless  character  of  railroad  land  grants  is  worthy 
of  more  extended  remarks  than  can  be  here  given.  The 
first  of  these  grants  was  made  to  Illinois.  It  is  notorious 
that  the  road  paid  a  profit  independent  of  the  land  grant 
on  every  division  as  fast  as  constructed.  Contractors  even 
got  rich  by  completing  the  roads  ri  advance  of  time  and 
running  them  for  their  own  benefit  until  turned  over  under 
the  contracts.  It  is  notorious  further,  that  none  of  the 
aided  roads — except  the  Union  and  Central  Pacific  and 
perhaps  the  California  and  O^'egon — were  built  until  a 
'jrofit  in  construction  could  be  seen  without  the  aid  of 
the    land   grants;   and    the  two   former  were  built  with 


IMPKOVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  155 

the  money  of  the  Government  and  not  with  the  money  of 
the  corporations.  The  land  grants  have  been  almost 
invariably  regarded  and  used  as  the  private  plunder  of  the 
incorporators  of  the  company  and  not  for  the  purpose  of 
building  the  roads. 

Immediately  upon  the  procurement  of  a  grant  and  tiling 
in  the  land  office  a  map  of  purported  definite  location, 
descriptive  lists  of  the  lands  were  obtained  from  the 
Department  of  the  Interior,  the  lands  sold  to  collusive 
syndicates  or  to  outside  purchasers,  and  the  building  of  the 
roads  was  frequently  left  to  those  who  might  come  after* 
wards. 

The  early  grants  were  made  to  States  for  the  benefit  of 
railroad  companies  and  were  in  each  case  for  the  public 
land  in  a  specified  number  of  alternate  sections  on  each 
side  of  the  road,  not  including  in  such  grants  any  land  pre- 
viously reserved  or  disposed  of  by  the  United  States,  or  to 
which  a  pre-emption  right  had  attached  at  date  of  grant  or 
which  should  have  attached  at  date  of  the  definite  location 
of  the  line  of  the  road. 

There  was  no  provision  of  law  in  these  early  grants  for 
the  issue  of  patents  or  certificates  to  the  State  or  railroad 
company.  After  the  road  was  definitely  located  the  State 
might  sell  the  land  in  alternate  sections,  for  a  distance  of 
twenty  miles.  When  twenty  miles  of  road  were  built  and 
accepted,  twenty  miles  more  of  the  granted  land  mieht  be 
sold.  If  the  land  was  occupied  by  a  pre-emption  settler  at 
the  date  of  the  grant  the  company  could  not  sell  that  land. 
If  occupied  by  a  settler  at  date  of  definite  location  it  could 
not  be  sold,  but  other  land  could  be  taken  in  place  of  it. 

If  the  law  had  been  allowed  its  course  no  settler's  land 
would  ever  have  been  given  to  a  railroad  company,  because 
a  settler  need  only  prove  that  he  or  some  other  person  was 
living:  on  the  land  or  claimino;  it  under  the  laws  of  the 


156  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

United  States  at  the  date  of  grant  or  at  date  of  definite 
location  of  the  road,  as  the  case  might  be,  and  any  sale  or 
attempted  sale  of  such  land  by  the  State  or  railroad  com- 
pany would  have  been  absolutely  void. 

But  the  officers  of  the  Interior  Department,  without 
authority  of  law,  and  in  defiance  of  the  rights  of  the  set- 
tlers, certified  to  the  States  or  companies,  outright,  millions 
of  acres  of  land  regardless  of  claims  that  might  be  upon 
the  land,  or  of  any  just  claim  that  might  be  entitled  to  be 
afterwards  placed  upon  the  land. 

More  than  that,  they  certified  such  lands  when  no  road 
had  heen  hidlt,  and  before  any  road  had  heen  commenced^  and 
"before  it  was  hiown  whether  the  State  or  the  companies 
would  ever  he  entitled  to  tlie  land^  except  the  quantity 
allowed  for  the  first  twenty  miles,  or  how  much  land  they 
would  ever  be  entitled  to,  or  the  time  when  they  would  be 
entitled  to  it. 

More  than  that,  they  unlawfully  and  fraudulently  certi- 
fied millions  of  acres  of  indemnity  lands  when  no  indem- 
nity had  been  earned,  when  7io  road  had  been  built,  nx)  losses 
to  the  grant  ascertained,  no  losses  sustained,  and  no  indem- 
nity right  acquired  io  any  land  whatever. 

These  certificates  passed  a  presumptive  title  to  the  rail- 
road companies,  sufficient  to  enable  the  land  to  be  sold  by 
the  companies  before  the  time  when  the  law  allowed  such 
sale,  and  sufficient  to  enable  them  to  attack  and  defeat 
existing  settlement  claims,  and  to  prevent  the  attachment 
of  other  settlers'  rights,  which  the  law  had  in  terms  secured 
to  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  through  which  the  roads 
ran.  The  following  statement,  compiled  from  official 
sources,  and  covering  the  years  1857,  1858,  and  1859,  is 
given  as  an  example  of  this  line  of  procedure,  which  com- 
menced soon  after  the  first  railroad  grants  were  made,  and 
was  continued  for  an  indefinite  period  thereafter: 


IMPKOVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF  PUBLIC   LANDS. 


157 


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JO    9lT?p  IB 

p.lOJisnoo 
pBoa  sica  'o^i 


-gijjao  joj 
XliJOqiKV 


©  ©  ®  o  o 
a  a  n  s  s 
o    o   o  c  o 


s  a 
o  o 


"^  e  s 

o  o 


n  sees 
o  o  o  c  o 
2    15  ZZZ 


4)  O*  Oi  CJ  Ci 

a  a  p  a  a 

o  o  c  o  o 

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158  A  CALL  TO   ACTION. 

It  will  be  seen  that  in  the  three  years  mentioned  as  a 
specimen  of  land  office  practice,  upwards  of  six  million 
acres  were  certified  when  only  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
six  and  a  half  miles  of  road  had  been  built!  It  is  apparent 
from  the  Land  Office  Reports  that  the  bulk  of  all  the  rail- 
road lands  certified  under  State  grants,  amounting  to  some 
30,000,000  acres,  were  thus  prematurely  conveyed,  and  in 
some  instances  the  roads  are  not  yet  built,  and  in  others 
are  only  partially  constructed. 

Analyzing  the  preceding  Exhibit  and  obtaining  official 
data  to  make  an  illustrative  example  of  the  effect  of  pre- 
mature certifications  of  railroad  land,  I  take  four  grants  in 
the  State  of  Iowa  and  find  the  following  to  be  the  facts: 

The  Burlington  and  Missouri  River  Road  earned  no 
indemnity  lands  before  November  26,  1869,  for  until  that 
time  the  road  had  not  been  built.  It  had  no  right  to  any 
granted  lands  until  after  March  3,  1865,  the  date  of  the 
passage  of  an  act  authorizing  a  change  in  the  line  of  the 
road.  Until  after  that  time  there  was  no  definite  location 
that  fixed  the  route  of  the  road  on  the  line  upon  which  it 
was  constructed.  Yet  ninety  thousand  acres  within  unde- 
termined granted  limits  were  certified  for  the  company  in 
1859,  and  in  the  same  year  the  officers  of  the  Interior 
Department  took  from  settlement  right  one  hundred  and 
forty  thousand  acres  of  land  in  indemnity  limits,  and  with- 
out authority  of  law  or  equitable  excuse  gave  these  lands  to 
the  railroad. 

The  Chicago,  Rock  Island  and  Pacific  Road  was  not 
completed  until  June  6,  1869.  Until  that  date  indemnity 
rights  were  incomplete.  The  line  having  been  changed 
there  was  no  actual  definite  location  until  construction,  and 
no  right  to  any  granted  land  could  be  acquired  until  the 
entire  definite  line  was  designated.  But  ten  years  before 
the  rights  of  the  company  under  the  railroad  grant  were 


IMPROVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  159 

legally  established,  the  Department  of  the  Interior  robbed 
citizens  of  Iowa  of  three  hundred  and  eighty-seven  thou- 
sand acres  of  land  whicli  were  given  to  this  company 
through  premature  and  unlawful  certifications. 

The  Dubuque  and  Pacific  Koad  (afterwards  Cedar 
Kapids  and  Missouri  River,  Dubuque  and  Sioux  City,  and 
Iowa  Falls  and  Sioux  City)  to  which  the  Interior  Depart- 
ment gave  one  million  seven  hundred  thousand  acres  as 
early  as  1858,  never  built  any  road  on  the  line  of  selections, 
never  built  but  eighty  miles  of  road  altogether  under  the 
grant,  on  account  of  which  it  was  given  seven  hundred 
thousand  acres  as  granted  lands,  and  one  million  acres  of 
indemnity,  and  had  not  earned  one  acre  of  the  one  million 
indemnity  at  the  time  these  lands  were  unlawfully  trans- 
ferred to  it. 

Settlers  and  purchasers  of  land  along  the  four  great 
lines  of  railroad  which  cross  the  State  of  Iowa,  who  paid 
more  than  $1.25  per  acre  for  their  lands  between  1856  and 
1865  and  later,  have  somebody  to  thank,  and  it  might  be 
well  for  them  to  inquire  whom. 

In  October,  1881,  the  Senate  Committee  on  Public  Lands 
was  instructed  by  resolution  to  inquire  into  the  condition 
of  the  General  Land  Office.  The  inquiry  was  commenced 
in  December,  1881,  and  the  committee  reported  April  3, 
1882.  (Senate  Report  No.  362,  First  Session,  Forty-first 
Congress.)  In  the  course  of  this  inquiry  Mr.  J.  "W. 
LeBarnes,  then  and  for  several  years  afterward  Law  Clerk 
of  the  General  Land  Office,  was  examined  and  gave  his 
testimony  in  the  matter  of  railroad  administration  in  the 
Department  of  the  Interior.  The  statement  of  this  officer 
will  be  found  on  pages  89  to  105  and  pages  113  to  151, 
inclusive,  of  said  report,  and  is  a  most  scathing  arraign- 
ment of  the  illegal  practices,  unjust  decisions,  and  corpor- 
ation-inspired   policy  which  had   habitually   marked    the 


160  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

liistoly  of  proceedings  in  the  Land  Department  in  its 
administration  of  railroad  a^rants  and  its  treatment  of 
conflicting  interests  of  settlers  and  of  the  rights  of  the 
Government. 

MOKE   ABOUT  KAILKOAD    FBATJDS   IN   IOWA. 

Referring  to  railroad  grants  in  Iowa,  a  volume  of 
injustice  and  oppression,  of  railroad  audacity  and  official 
mendacity,  collusion  and  outrage  is  compressed  in  the 
following  brief  paragraphs  found  in  the  printed  testimony: 

"In  1856  (11  Stat,,  9)  a  grant  of  land  was  made  to  the 
State  of  Iowa,  which  was  transferred  by  the  State  to  the 
Iowa  Central  Air  Line  Railway  Company.  This  company 
constructed  no  road,  but  became  insolvent;  775,717  61-100 
acres  of  land  were,  however,  approved  to  the  State  for  the 
benefit  of  the  road.  In  1860  the  Legislature  of  Iowa 
resumed  control  of  the  grant  and  transferred  it  to  the 
Cedar  Rapids  &  Missouri  River  Railroad  Company  on 
certain  conditions. 

"In  1864  (13  Stat.,  96)  Congress  recognized  this  trans- 
fer, and  made  a  new  grant  to  the  company  of  the  same 
lands  and  the  same  amount  of  lands  as  originally  granted 
to  the  State,  It  also  authorized  a  change  in  the  location  of 
the  road,  and  the  construction  of  a  branch  line.  But  as 
the  former  company  had  built  no  road,  and  it  was  uncer- 
tain whether  the  road  would  be  constructed,  large  numbers 
of  settlers  had  gone  on  the  lands  within  the  limits  of  the 
original  grant  of  1856.  Congress  therefore  provided  that 
the  conveyance  of  lands  under  this  grant  should  not 
embrace  any  lands  within  such  original  limits  which  had 
been  sold  or  pre-empted,  or  to  which  a  pre-emption  right 
or  homestead  settlement  had  attached,  or  on  which  a  hona 
jide  settlement  and  improvement  had  been  made  under 
color  of  title  from  the  TJnited  States  or  the  State  of  Iowa; 
and  to  allow  for  deficiencies  in  the  grant  it  was  provided 
that  if  the  amount  of  land  originally  intended  to  be  granted 
under  the  act  of  1856,  could  not  be  found  within  the  limits 
prescribed  by  that  act,  then  selections  to  make  up  such 
amount  mi^ht  be  made  within  a  distance  of  twentv  n:iles 


IMPKOVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  IGl 

from  the  new  line  of    road.      The  original  grant  was  for 
alternate  odd-numbered  sections  within  six  miles  on  each 
side  of  the  road,  with  the  right  to  select  indemnity  in  odd- 
numbered    sections   within   lifteen   miles.       The   new   act 
increased  the  indemnity  limits  as  stated.     It  was  also  pro- 
vided that  whenever  the  modified  main  lines  should  be 
established,  or  the  connecting  line  located,  the  company* 
should  file  a  map  definitely  showing  such  modified  line  and 
connecting  branch.     When  this  should  be  done  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Interior  was  to  reserve,  and  cause  to  be  certi- 
fied to  the  company  as  the  work  progressed,  the  lands  to 
which  it  would  be  entitled  under  the  grant.     The  map  of 
definite  location  required  to  be  filed  in  the  General  Land 
Ofiice  as  a  condition  prcedent  to  the  reservation  of  any 
lands  for  the  benefit  of  the  grant  was  never  filed.     There 
was,  therefore,  never  any  authority  of   law  for  the  with- 
drawal of    any  lands  under  this  grant.     A  general  with- 
drawal of  all  the  pubKc  lands  in  Iowa  was,  however,  made 
in  June,  1864,  for  the  benefit  of   railroad  grants.     It  was 
stated  that  this  withdrawal  was  made  at  the  request  of  the 
Iowa  delegation  in  Congress.     No  act  of  Congress  author- 
ized it.     In  August,  1864,  this  withdrawal  was  modified  so 
as  not  to  inhibit  pre-emption  and  homestead  entries.     In 
June,  1865,  the  modification  was  annulled,  and  all  entries 
made  under  it  were  suspended.     In  July,  1866,  an  order 
was  made  to  restore  to  market  all  lands  in  the  State  that 
had  previously  been  withdrawn.     In  September,  1866,  the 
execution  of  this  order  was  suspended.      In  August,  1867, 
the  order  was  again  issued,  and  the  restoration  was  made 
by  public  notice.      In  1875  the  department  decided  the 
restoration  to  have  been  illegal,  and  all  pending  entries 
made  under  it  were  canceled.       Where  patents  had  been 
issued,  but  not  delivered,  they  were  called  for  and  with- 
held. 

"These  proceedings,  which  were  wholly  of  departmental 
authority,  affected  the  lands  within  the  limits  of  the  grant 
to  the  Cedflj*  Ea,pids  &  Missouri  River  Railroad  Company 
equally  with  all  other  lands  in  the  State.  Then  in  the 
adjudication  of  the  claims  of  settlers  it  was  held  by  this 
oflSce  that  the  right  of  this  company  under  the  grant  of 

11 


162  A   CALL  TO    ACTION. 

1864  attached  to  all  the  lands  embraced  in  the  original 
grant  to  the  State,  from  the  date  of  the  original  grant  in 
1856;  and  the  rights  of  settlers  who  had  gone  on  the  lands 
between  1856  and  1864,  and  which  were  legally  protected 
by  the  statute,  and  for  which  protection  additional  indem- 
nity selections  were  allowed  to  the  company,  were 
rejected.  It  was  further  held  that  the  right  of  indemnity 
selection  provided  for  by  the  act  of  1864  was  an  absolute 
grant,  that  it  embraced  both  odd  and  even  numbered  sec- 
tions within  the  limits  of  twenty  miles,  and  that  it  took 
effect  upon  the  date  of  the  passage  of  the  act.  Under  the 
statutory  provision  requiring  a  map  of  definite  location  to 
be  filed  before  any  lands  could  be  reserved,  the  rights  of 
settlers  who  settled  before  such  map  was  filed,  and  in 
default  of  the  filing  of  the  map,  before  actual  selection  of 
the  land  for  the  company  after  the  construction  of  the  road, 
were  protected  in  their  settlements.  Under  the  rulings  of 
this  office  these  rights  were  not  recognized,  but  the  lands 
and  improvements  of  such  settlers  were  decreed  to  the 
railroad.  These  proceedings  went  on  until  the  lands  taken 
from  the  settlers  had  aided  in  swelling  the  grant  far  beyond 
its  maximum  limits.  Cases  of  this  kind  have  been  decided 
in  this  manner  down  to  the  present  time,  and  others  are 
still  pending. 

"What  is  true  of  this  grant  is  also  true  of  several  other 
grants  in  the  State  of  Iowa,  except  as  to  the  amount  of 
land  received  by  the  companies  in  excess  of  the  amount  to 
which  they  were  entitled.  That  is  a  matter  I  have  not 
investigated.  But  the  decisions  affecting  the  rights  of 
settlers  were,  I  believe,  of  the  same  character  as  here  stated. 

"Q.  Where  lands  are  awarded  to  railroad  companies  in 
the  way  you  have  mentioned  in  your  testimony  do  the 
companies  receive  money  from  the  settlers  for  the  sake  of 
quieting  the  settlers'  titles?  A.  Yes,  sir;  I  have  heard  of 
settlers  paying  as  much  as  fifty  dollars  an  acre  for  land 
awarded  to  the  railroads  in  this  way." — (Testimony,  pp., 
149-151.) 

It  being  impossible  in  the  limited  pages  of  this  book  to 
present  more  than  a  few  instances  to  illustrate  the  general 
character  of  railroad  mal-administration  in  the  Department 


IMPEOVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  163 

of  the  Interior,  I  take  the  fore^oin£r  case  as  a  pertinent 
example  of  the  infamous  methods  exposed  by  this  testi- 
mony in  the  robbery  of  public  lands  in  Iowa.  It  must  be 
remembered,  also,  that  the  Iowa  case  is  an  example  only 
and  not  an  exception.  Classif3dng  the  points  in  the  above 
testimony  it  is  seen  that  the  witness  asserts: 

I.  That  the  law  required  a  map  of  definite  location  to 
be  filed  before  any  lands  could  legally  be  withdrawn  from 
entry  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior. 

II.  That  such  map  was  not  filed. 

III.  That  lands  were  withdrawn,  all  the  same,  by  com- 
placent officers  of  the  Government,  and  that  these  with- 
drawals were  for  the  benefit  of  the  four  lines  of  road  across 
the  State  and  included  all  public  lands  in  the  State.  The 
tergiversations  of  withdrawals,  restorations  and  revocation 
of  restorations,  make  a  confusing  medley  in  which  settlers 
were  caught  as  in  a  vise,  while  the  land,  including  their 
improvements,  passed  to  the  railroad  company. 

IV.  That  the  Land  Office,  incorrectly  and  in  violation 
of  the  statute,  held  that  the  grant  of  July  2,  1864,  was  an 
absolute  grant,  and  that  it  took  effect  upon  the  passage  of 
the  act,  and  operated  upon  all  lands  within  the  prescribed 
limits,  while,  in  fact,  the  act  only  made  an  indemnity  pro- 
vision which  did  not  operate  on  any  lands  whatever  until 
the  company  had  made  its  selections  to  compensate  for 
ascertained  deficiencies,  and  in  no  case  until  after  the  map 
of  definite  location  had  been  filed.  The  Land  Office  made 
the  act  take  effect  as  an  absolute  grant  upon  all  lands  in 
July,  1864.  In  the  case  of  Cedar  Kapids  R.  R.  Co.  m. 
Hening  and  others,  decided  by  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  in  1884  (110  U.  S.,  27),  the  Court  sustained  the  views 
expressed  in  the  statement  above  referred  to,  and  held  that 
the  act  of  1864  allowed  indemnity  only;  that  the  indemnity 
right  did  not  attach  to  any  lands  until  the  proper  selection 


164  A    CALL  TO   ACTION. 

was  made  ;  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  had  no  right 
to  make  any  withdrawal  until  the  map  of  definite  location 
was  filed,  and  the  Court  upheld  the  patents  involved  in  the 
twenty-nine  cases  embraced  in  this  suit.  In  some  of  these 
cases  the  lands  had  been  patented  before  withdrawal  and  in 
others  not  until  aftewards.  (See  Guilford  Miller  case, 
Land  Office  Keport,  1885,  p.  206). 

So,  by  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  with  all  its 
leanings  in  favor  of  railroad  corporations  and  its  habitual 
methods  of  deciding  in  favor  of  such  corporations  upon 
even  the  flimsiest  of  pretexts,  the  basis  of  every  order  and 
decision  of  the  Land  Office  making  withdrawals  under  this 
grant  and  rejecting  settlers'  claims  for  conflict  with  it,  was 
invalidated  and  the  rulings  of  the  Land  O  ffice  shown  to  be 
illegal  and  absurd.  The  Court  say  that  it  was  the  purpose 
of  the  act  to  authorize  certain  changes  in  the  line  of  the 
road,  and  "To  adjust  the  amount  of  lands  to  which  the 
company  would  be  entitled  under  this  new  order  of  things 
and  to  enlarge  the  source  from  which  selections  might  be 
made  for  the  loss  of  those  not  found  in  place."  Cedar 
Rapids  cases,  supra. 

The  land  office  held  that  the  act  made  a  new  grant  out- 
right, and  so  awarded  the  lands  to  the  railroad  company. 
After  it  was  too  late  to  protect  the  people,  the  Court  said 
that  the  act  only  enlarged  the  area  within  which  the  indem- 
nity selections  could  be  made,  and  gave  the  company  no 
right  to  the  lands  unless  a  right  of  indemnity  selection 
existed,  and  not  then  until  selections  were  lawfully  made. 

"It  is  not  easy  to  see  how  rights  can  be  vested  in  any 
particular  section  or  sections  of  the  latter  class  (indemnity 
lands)  until  it  is  ascertained  how  man.>  of  the  original  odd 
numbered  sections  are  thus  lost  and  until  the  grantee  has 
exercised  his  right  of  selection."    {Ihid.) 

The  Court  said  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  had  no 
rieht  to  make  any  withdrawal  .until  December  1,  ISeT,  a 


IMPKOVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  165 

period  of  three  years  and  a  half  after  withdrawals  were 
made : 

The  following  official  correspondence  shows  that  Law 
Clerk  Le  Barnes  was  correct,  in  stating  that  the  withdrawal 
of  these  lands  was  made  at  the  request  of  the  Iowa  delega- 
tion in  Congress : 

Department  of  the  Interior, 
Washington,  June  16,  1861. 
The  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office  : 

Sir  :  Having  considered  your  report  of  the  2d  instant, 
inclosing  the  request  of  the  Congressional  dele<ration  from 
Iowa  representing  the  wishes  of  the  people  of  the  State,  I 
have  deemed  it  expedient,  for  the  purpose  of  facilitating 
the  adjustment  of  the  several  grants  of  land  recently  made 
by  Congress  to  the  State  of  Iowa,  to  direct  that  all  the  pub- 
lic lands  therein  now  remaining  unsold  be  withdrawn  from 
entry  and  location  by  individuals,  thus  terminating  for  the 
present  all  the  ordinary  disposals  of  said  lands. 

This  order  will  not  interfere  with  iiie  completion  of  the 
selections  by  the  State  under  the  grant  for  agricultural  col- 
leges, etc. 

In  view  of  the  above  order,  and  the  reduced  quantity  of 
public  lands  remaining  in  the  State,  I  have  to  request  that 
you  will  advise  me,  as  soon  as  practicable,  whether  some  of 
the  land  offices  in  Iowa  might  not  be  discontinued  and  their 
business  transferred  to  other  offices,  pursuant  to  the  pro- 
visions of  the  fifth  section  of  the  act  of  Congress  approved 
May  30,  1862. 

The  papers  that  accompanied  your  letters  of  the  2d  and 
7th  instant  are  now  returned, 

I  am,  sir,  very  respectfully,  3^0Hr  obedient  servant, 

J.  P.  Usher,  Secretary. 

Department  of  the  Interior,  \ 
General  Land  Office,  >• 
June  16,  1861.      J 
Register  and  Receiver, 

Des  Moine.%  Iowa: 
The  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  at  the  request  of  the  Iowa 
delegation  in   Congress,   has  directed  that  all  the  public 


166  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

lands  in  said  State  be  withdrawn  from  entry  and  location 
by  individuals,  with  a  view  to  facilitate  the  adjustment  of 
the  several  g'rants  of  land  recently  made  by  Congress  to 
the  State  of  Iowa.  You  are,  therefore,  hereby  instructed 
to  withdraw  from  sale,  location,  homestead  entry,  or  pre- 
emption claim,  all  the  public  lands  in  your  district  now 
subject  to  sale  from  the  date  of  the  receipt  of  this  letter, 
excepting  only  you  will  allow  the  completion  of  the  selec- 
tions by  the  State  under  the  grant  for  agricultural  colleges. 

The  receipt  of  this  you  will  promptly  acknowledge, 
stating  the  date  at  which  it  may  reach  you,  thus  interdicting 
hereafter  the  disposal  of  any  tract  with  the  exception  men- 
tioned. 

I  am,  very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant. 

J.  M.  Edmunds, 
Cortimissioner' 

(Copy  of  this  sent  to  land  offices  at  Sioux  City,  Council 
Bluffs,  and  Fort  Dodge.) 

Other  official  correspondence  on  file  in  the  Interior 
Department  shows  that  the  request  for  the  withdrawal  of 
the  lands  was  made  by  the  delegation  the  same  day  the  act 
was  approved,  June  2,  1864.  The  public  lands  remaining 
in  the  State  at  that  time  amounted  to  about  six  hundred 
thousand  acres. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  this  period  was  the  very 
time  when  Iowa  soldiers  were  returning  from  the  battle- 
fields of  the  war  and  seeking  to  invest  their  small  earnings, 
received  in  return  for  their  great  sacrifices,  to  make  homes 
for  themselves  and  their  families  upon  the  public  lands  of 
the  United  States.  They  found  the  public  lands  in  the 
great  State  of  Iowa  closed  against  them  by  railroad  with- 
drawals that  had  been  made  without  justification  and 
without  color  of  legal  authority,  as  the  Supreme  Court 
afterward  decided.  These  withdrawals  continued  long 
after  that  period;  and  as  late  as  1875  the  Department, 
protecting  and  approving  these  illegal  withdrawals,  decreed 
the  temporary  restorations  that  had  been  made   to   have 


IMPROVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF  PUBLIC   LANDS.  167 

been  unlawful,  canceled  entries  that  had  been  allowed 
under  such  temporary  restorations,  and,  where  patents  had 
been  issued  to  settlers  and  sent  to  the  local  land  offices  for 
delivery,  but  had  not  been  delivered,  the  General  Land 
Office  recalled  such  patents  and  witheld  them  from  their 
lawful  owners. 

These  patents  had  passed  the  legal  title  of  the  United 
States,  and  it  was  as  incompetent  for  the  General  Land 
Office  to  interfere  with  them,  or  to  recall  them,  or  to  with- 
hold them,  as  it  would  have  been  to  have  attempted  to 
interfere  with  the  private  deeds  and  conveyances  in  Ohio 
or  New  York.  This  high-handed  act  of  the  Land  Office 
discrediting  the  patents  of  the  United  States,  compelled  the 
holders  of  perfect  titles  from  the  United  States  to  buy  an 
invalid  and  worthless  railroad  claim  to  protect  their  homes. 

How  many  such  instances  there  were,  will  probably 
never  be  known;  how  many  more  instances  there  were,  in 
which  valid  entries  which  had  not  been  patented  were  as 
arbitrarily  and  unlawfully  canceled,  will  probably  never 
be  disclosed  by  the  General  Land  Office;  the  multitude 
of  other  instances  in  which  lawful  entries  were  wickedly 
and  shamefully  denied,  can  never  be  known,  as  no  records 
are  kept  of  those  who   "'  die  and  make  no  sign." 

Undoubtedly,  every  one  of  the  patentees  or  their  legal 
representatives,  have  a  clear,  indisputable  right  to-day  to 
secure  the  patents  which  had  been  issued,  to  stand  upon 
that  absolute  title  and  to  recover  from  the  railroad  com- 
pany and  its  privies  whatever  money  they  may  have 
been  wrongfully  compelled  to  pay. 

The  law  gives  to  those  whose  unpatented  entries  were 
illegally  canceled,  a  remedy,  to  still  preserve  their  rights, 
and  for  recovery  from  the  railroad  companies  of  moneys 
wrongfully  exacted;  but  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  and 
the  Attorney  General  have  found  a  way  to  defeat  the  law. 


168  A    CALL   TO   ACTION. 

in  this  and  other  respects,  and  to  protect  the  railroad  com- 
panies and  their  confederates  in  stolen  property  of  this 
kind,  as  will  be  shown  hereafter. 

FTJRTHEE   TESTIMONY   BY   THE   LAW   CLEEK. 

The  following  extracts  from  the  testimony  of  the  Law 
Clerk  of  the  General  Land  Office,  indicate  the  unerring 
fidelity  of  the  Land  Department  of  the  Government  to  the 
interests  of  corporations,  and  its  habitual  disregard  of  the 
interests  of  settlers  and  of  the  Government,  and  affords  a 
clear  view  of  corporate  methods  and  influence  in  the 
Department. 

"Q.  How  is  it  in  regard  to  the  ability  of  counsel  usually 
employed  by  railroad  companies?  A.  Railroad  com- 
panies never  make  the  mistake  of  employing  lawyers  of 
inferior  capacity.  A  railroad  corporation  has  the  ablest 
attorneys  in  its  service  that  the  country  can  produce.  A 
settler  has  no  attorney,  or  perhaps  very  indifferent  counsel. 
He  may  be  some  local  attorney  without  much  practice  or 
experience  in  the  questions  he  is  called  to  manage.  When 
the  case  comes  before  the  General  Land  Office  a  corpora- 
tion is  represented  not  only  by  able  but  by  abundant 
counsel.  The  settler  generally  is  wholly  unable  to  employ 
a  resident  attorney,  but  relies  on  the  merits  of  his  case  and 
the  fidelity  of  the  officers  of  the  government  to  secure  him 
his  rights. 

"Q.  Before  what  tribunal  or  what  class  of  minds  are 
these  questions  heard  in  the  first  instance?  A.  Before 
the  clerks  having  that  matter  in  charge. 

"Q.     Before  ordinary  clerks?     A.  Yes,  sir. 

"Q.  Do  these  counsel  have  access,  informally,  to  these 
clerks  in  private  conversation  and  otherwise,  and  endeavor 
to  press  their  views  upon  these  clerks  with  such  means  as 
they  see  fit  to  exercise  upon  them?  A.  /  think  it  has 
usually  heen  the  fact  that  the  views  of  railroad  attorneys^ 
and  their  constructions  of  the  law,  have  heen  fully  imjyressed 
upon  the  minds  of  clerks  acting  ttpon  cases  in  which  the  cor- 
porations are  interested.     The  regulations  prohibit  confer- 


IMPKOVIDENT   DISPOSAL    OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  169 

ences  between  attorneys  and  clerks  except  upon  permission. 
Such  regulations  have  not  always  proved  effective,  although 
they  are  now  more  strictly  enforced  than  formerly.  At- 
torneys have,  however,  full  access  to  chiefs  of  divisions. 

"Q.  What  is  the  nature  of  the  hearings  that  then  occur 
upon  these  questions  before  these  clerks,  and  how  are  they 
conducted  ?  A.  Tlie  attorney  of  the  company  goes  in 
person  to  the  General  Land  Office,  examines  the  papers, 
and  if  necessary  follows  the  case  to  whoever  has  it  in 
charge  or  control,  and  argues  and  insists  upon  the  superior 
or  exclusive  rights  of  his  company  to  the  land.  Tliere  are 
no  formal  hearings.  Tlie  pressure  brought  upon  clerks  is 
the  pressure  of  tlie  power  and  injluence  of  the  great  corpor- 
ations. If  a  case  involving  railroad  interests  adverse  to  a 
settler's  right  or  to  the  public  interests,  happens  to  come 
to  the  attention  of  the  Commissioner  before  final  decision, 
the  attorneys  usually  find  it  out  and  interview  the  Com- 
missioner on  the  subject.  TJiey  also  look  very  closely  after 
cases  that  may  in  the  same  manner  come  before  the  law 
clerk  for  his  opinion. 

Q.  Are  many  cases  terminated  without  reaching  you  at 
all?  A.  Until  the  present  Commissioner  came  into  ofiice, 
legal  questions  relative  to  railroad  grants,  and  to  rights 
and  interests  arising  thereunder,  never  came  before  the  law 
clerk  of  the  bureau,  unless  in  some  merely  incidental  and 
comparatively  unimportant  cases.  They  were  acted  upon 
exclusively  in  the  railroad  division. 

Q.  Are  the  cases  that  go  before  you  for  adjudication 
such  as  are  not  satisfactory  to  the  corporations  interested 
in  them?  A.  It  is  the  other  way.  The  cases  in  which  the 
decisions  that  have  been  made  are  satisfactory  to  the  cor- 
porations are  the  ones  that  usuall}^  come  before  the  law 
clerk's  division. 

Q.  How  is  that?  A.  In  reviewing  the  office  decisions 
the  cases  that  may  be  thought  to  have  been  erroneously 
decided,  according  to  the  views  of  the  law  division,  are 
usually  those  where  the  decision  is  favorable  to  the  cor- 
poration. It  is  not  usual  to  make  mistakes  in  favor  of 
settlers. 

Q.  It  is  in  the  revision  of  this  class  of  work,  and  the 
detection  of  what  seems  to  you  to  be  injustice  towards  the 


ITO  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

settlers,  that  the  questions  arise?  A.  Yes,  sir;  and  it  is 
the  same  way  where  the  interests  of  the  United  States  are 
concerned. 

SECRETARY  SCHURZ. 

It  appears  from  the  testimony  that  the  Land  Office  had 
held  from  1850  down  to  1878,  that  the  right  of  a  railroad 
company  to  lands  within  indemnity  limits  was  the  same, 
and  attached  at  the  same  time  as  to  lands  within  granted 
limits,  and  that,  under  this  rule,  all  lands  within  indemnity 
limits  were  decreed  to  the  railroads  against  settlers.  In 
1878  a  case  arose  in  which  it  was  to  the  interest  of  a  rail- 
road company  to  get  a  different  decision,  and  the  court 
found,  rightly  as  it  happened,  that  the  practice  of  the  Land 
Office  for  thirty  years  had  been  totally  wrong.  The  diffi- 
culty in  getting  the  Interior  Department  to  accept  a  correct 
rule,  even  under  the  authority  of  the  Supreme  Court,  is 
thus  recited  by  the  witness: 

"At  the  October  term  of  the  Supreme  Court,  in  1878 
(100  U.  S.,  382),  in  the  case  of  Michael  Eyan  vs.  The  Cen- 
tral Pacific  Railroad  Company,  successor  to  the  California 
&  Oregon  Railroad  Company,  the  court  said  tliat  the  right 
to  select  lieu  or  indemnity  lands  was  only  a  float  and 
attached  only  to  unappropriated  and  unreserved  public 
land  at  date  of  withdrawal,  and  was  legally  withdrawn  at 
that  time. 

"Soon  after  this  opinion  was  pronounced,  the  Secretary 
of  the  Interior  (Schurz),  in  the  case  of  Blodgctt  vs.  The 
California  &  Oregon  Railroad  Company  (6  Copp.,  37), 
applied  the  principle  of  the  Ryan  decision  to  a  case  where 
lands  within  railroad  indemnity  limits  had  not  been  selected 
in  fact,  but  had  been  withdrawn  from  sale  or  disposal  for 
the  future  purpose  of  such  selection. 

"In  this  case  the  Secretary  held  that  the  withdrawal  had 
been  authorized  by  statute,  and  that  at  the  date  of  with- 
drawal the  tract  in  controversy  was  public  land,  and  there- 
fore subject  to  the  withdrawal.      There  had  been  a  prior 


IMPKOVIDKNT   DISPOSAL   OF   PUPLIC   LANDS.  171 

settler  on  tbe  land,  who  had  abandoned  it,  and  whose 
claim,  the  Secretary  held,  was  not  of  snch  a  character  as 
to  exclude  the  land  from  the  withdrawal,  and  consequently 
a  second  settler  who  went  on  the  land  after  the  abandon- 
ment by  the  prior  settler,  and  after  a  legal  withdrawal  had 
been  made,  could  claim  no  rights  by  virtue  of  the  former 
settlement. 

"The  principle  of  this  decision  was  that  where  lands 
were  public  lands  at  date  of  withdrawal,  and  were  subject 
to  withdrawal,  and  were  legally  withdrawn,  a  subsequent 
settler  could  not  claim  against  the  reservation  made  by  such 
prior  valid  withdrawal. 

"■The  Supreme  Court  held  that  a  reservation  existing  at 
some  time  previous  to  the  attachment  of  the  railroad  right, 
but  extinguished  and  not  existing  at  the  date  of  such  attach- 
ment did  not  defeat  the  railroad  right.  The  office  held 
that  a  reservation  which  was  in  existence  at  the  date  of  a 
withdrawal  of  lands  within  indemnity  limits  did  not  defeat 
the  withdrawal,  and  accordingly  rejected  the  claims  of  set- 
tlers who  entered  the  land  after  the  extinguishment  of  the 
prior  reservation  and  before  the  attachment  of  the  railroad 
right;  and  the  decision  in  the  Ryan  case  was  cited  as  the 
authority  for  this  ruling. 

''The  Secretary  held  that  where  a  prior  valid  settlement 
claim  was  not  existing  at  date  of  withdrawal,  the  with- 
drawal prevented  the  acquisition  of  a  subsequent  settler's 
right.  The  office  cited  this  decision  as  authority  for  ruling 
that  where  there  was  a  valid  settlement  right  existing  at 
date  of  withdrawal,  then  no  subsequent  settler's  right  could 
be  acquired. 

"Finding  the  decisions  of  the  office  thus  in  apparent  con- 
travention of  the  law  as  it  exists  in  the  statutes,  and  as 
expounded  by  the  Supretne  Court,  and  in  contravention 
also  of  the  cited  rulings  of  the  department,  all  decisions  of 
this  character  were  withlield  and  an  explanation  asked  from 
the  writers. 

"They  stated  that  their  decisions  were  in  accordance  with 
tbe  practice  of  the  ottice;  that  in  their  opinion  such  decis- 
ions were  erroneous  but  tliat  tliey  were  not  permitted  to 
express  their  own  judgments,  and  that  they  were  required 


172  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

to  write  their  decisions  in  the  way  they  had  done.  The 
attention  of  the  chief  of  the  division  was  then  called  to 
what  seemed  to  be  an  obvious  raisappreliensioL  of  the  Ryan 
and  Blodgett  decisions,  as  tlins  shown.  He  stated  that  he 
had  followed  the  practice  which  he  had  found  existing. 

"  The  questions  involved  in  the  withheld  decisions  were 
then  stated  to  the  Commissioner.  He  directed  me  to 
rewrite  the  cases  as  I  thouojht  riglit,  and  to  present  to  him 
the  original  decisions,  together  with  those  prepared  by 
myself!^  for  his  consideration.  I  did  so,  and  the  matter 
was  contested  before  him  at  intervals  from  July  until 
December.  He  perceived  that  the  practice  of  the  office 
was  not  supported  by  the  authorities  cited  for  its  support, 
but  he  was  assured  that  the  practice  was  nevertheless  sanc- 
tioned by  other  and  unpublished  decisions  of  the  Secretary, 
He  required  the  production  of  such  unpublished  decisions, 
and  one  alleged  to  be  of  the  character  named  was  presented 
to  him.  I  stated  to  the  Commissioner  my  opinion  that  this 
decision  did  not  have  the  meaning  claimed  for  it,  and 
could  not  be  held  to  have  such  meaning,  except  by  a  forced 
construction  of  an  ambiguity,  arising  from  an  evident  mis- 
apprehension by  the  writer  of  that  decision,  of  a  former 
decision  made  by  the  Commissioner. 

"It  was  then  insisted  that  the  matter  should  be  referred  to 
the  Secretary,  which  was  done.  The  Secretary  declined  to 
consider  the  subject,  whereupon  the  Commissioner  felt  at 
liberty  to  act,  and  he  reversed  tlie  preceding  practice  of 
the  office  and  made  the  proper  decision  in  this  class 
of  cases.  But  from  April,  1879,  to  July,  1881,  the  incor- 
rect application  of  the  Ryan  and  Biodgett  decisions  had 
been  made  in  a  very  large  number  of  cases,  in  every  one 
of  which  some  poor  man's  home  had  been  sacrificed. 

"For  the  long  term  of  years  previous  to  1879  the  practice 
had  been  the  same,  nnder  the  theory,  as  I  have  stated,  that 
the  rights  of  railroad  companies  to  land  within  indemnity 
limits  were  held  to  have  attached  at  the  same  time  as  to 
lands  within  granted  limits. 

"The  eflect  of  the  misapplication  of  the  Ryan  and  Biodgett 
decisions  was  to  continue  the  former  practice  after  the  prin- 
ciple upon  which  that  practice  was  founded  had  been  pro- 
nounced incorrect  by  the  Supreme  Court. 


IMPKOVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  173 

"  Q.  Can  you  give  any  idea  of  the  extent  of  the  operation 
of  this  thing  upon  the  settlers?  A.  From  April,  1879,  to 
August,  1881,  or  a  period  of  two  years  and  a  half,  I  sup- 
pose there  must  have  been  at  least  two  or  three  hundred 
cases  decided  in  that  way,  and,  perhaps,  very  many  hun- 
dred cases  were  so  decided  previous  to  the  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court. 

"Q.  These  are  cases  where  men  who  have  made  their 
improvements  in  good  faith  have  been  ousted  from  their 
property  by  the  railroad  companies  without  compensation  ? 

' '  A.  Yes,  sir ;  or  by  the  Land  Department  for  the  benefit 
of  the  railroad  companies. 

"Q.  Has  it  been  the  custom  of  the  railroad  company,  or 
those  who  obtain  these  improved  lands  by  virtue  of  this 
construction  of  the  law  making  grants  to  them,  to  compen- 
sate the  ousted  parties  for  their  improvements?  A.  I 
have  never  heard  that  railroad  companies  compensated  set- 
tlers for  their  improvements  on  lands  decided  by  the  depart- 
ment to  belong  to  the  railroads.  There  have  been  many 
classes  of  cases  in  which  the  railroad  companies  have 
obtained  land  in  this  way. 

SCHUKZ   OVERRULES   CONGRESS. 

"In  the  case  of  Gates  vs.  California  &  Oregon  Railroad 
Company  it  was  held  by  the  Secretary,  in  1878  (5  Copp., 
150).  that  when  a  pre-emption  settler  was  on  land  within 
railroad  limits  at  the  date  of  the  attachment  of  the  railroad 
right,  and  afterwards  abandoned  his  claim  or  transferred 
his  improvemetits  to  another,  the  former  pre-emption  claim 
did  not  except  the  land  from  the  grant,  and  that  a  subse- 
quent settler  purchasing  this  former  settler's  improvements, 
or  otherwise  occupying  the  land  after  the  former  settler 
had  abandoned  it,  could  not  have  his  claim  recognized. 

"  The  same  rule  had  existed  previous  to  the  decision  in  the 
Gates  case  and  prior  to  1876,  and  had  caused  much  com- 
plaint, as  it  was  of  wide  application  and  affected  great 
numbers  of  cases. 

"In  1876,  Congress  attempted  to  correct  this,  and  some 
other  rulings  of  the  department,  by  positive  legislation. 
The  act  of  AprU  21,  of  that  year  (19  Stat.,   35),  was  a 


1Y4:  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

mandatory  act  requiring  the  department  to  recognize  the 
validity  of  subsequent  entries  where  land  had  been  covered 
by  former  claims  of  the  date  of  withdrawal  of  lands  for 
railroad  grants.  This  act  did  not  have  the  effect  which 
was  shown  by  the  Senate  debates  to  have  been  expected 
by  the  legislative  mind.  The  Gates  decision  was  rendered 
without  reference  to  the  act  of  1876,  and  was  afterwards 
modified  upon  such  fact  being  shown.  But  the  unmodified 
decision  appears  to  have  been  the  rule  usually  followed  in 
the  Land  Ofiice  down  to  a  recent  date.  The  regulations 
adopted  by  departmental  concurrence  or  instructions,  and 
the  rulings  made  under  the  act  of  18T6,  had  the  effect  in 
all  cases  to  make  the  relief  contemplated  by  that  act  diffi- 
cult of  availability,  and  in  most  cases  to  render  the  act 
inoperative.  It  was  held,  for  example,  that  the  act  could 
have  no  prospective  effect  because  its  language  implied  a 
past  tense.  Then  it  was  held  that  it  could  have  no  retro- 
active effect  because  that  would  be  unconstitutional. 
Again,  if  a  case  arose,  that  in  the  view  of  the  office  could 
be  recognized  as  coming  within  the  provisions  of  the  act,  the 
claim  was  rejected,  unless  the  party  was  careful  to  state 
that  he  claimed  the  benefit  of  the  act.  He  was  not  allowed 
to  have  the  benefit  of  the  act  unless  he  expressly  claimed 
it.  A  great  many  cases  have  been  adjudicated  in  this  way, 
and  the  parties  who  had  an  absolute  legal  right  to  their 
land  under  the  indemnity  provisions  of  the  act  granting 
lands  for  railroad  purposes,  and  had  such  right  irrespective 
of  the  act  of  1876,  were  defeated  in  their  claims  under  the 
construction  given  to  an  act  designed  for  their  protection. 
"A  case  was  adjudicated  under  this  act  tb  which  the  act 
had  no  application,  and  this  case  was  then  brought  before 
the  State  court  of  Kansas,  as  a  test  case,  to  determine  the 
validity  of  the  act.  In  this  case,  according  to  the  findings 
of  the  Court,  the  original  settler  was  proven  to  have  volun- 
tarily abandoned  his  claim  in  1868.  In  1869  the  railroad 
right  attached.  In  1871  a  second  settler  made  an  entry  of 
the  land.  This  entry  was  canceled,  and  in  1875  the  land 
was  patented  to  the  railroad  company.  In  1878  the  second 
settler's  entry  was  reinstated  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Inte- 
rior, under  the  act  of  1876,  and  patent  was  issued  to  the 
settler.     Then  the  case  was  brought  before  the  Court.     The 


IMPKOVIDENT    DISPOSAL    OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  IjO 

Court  found  that  the  first  settler's  claim  was  invalid,  and 
accordingly  held  that  the  second  settler  had  no  rights 
against  the  railroad  grant,  which  had  become  effective  after 
the  abandonment  of  the  first  settler's  claim.  The  Oourt 
thought  that  under  the  circumstances  recited,  the  reinstate- 
ment ef  the  second  settler's  entry  was  a  mistake  in  law, 
and  observed  that  as  the  railroad  company's  title  had  vested 
in  this  particular  tract  in  1869,  this  vested  title  could  not  be 
disturbed  by  a  subsequent  act  of  Congress. 

"The  act  of  1876  provided  that  where  valid  homestead  or 
pre-emption  claims  existed  at  date  of  withdrawal  of  lands 
under  railroad  grants,  and  these  claims  were  afterwards 
abandoned,  the  claims  of  subsequent  settlers  on  such  lands 
should  be  confirmed.  In  the  case  before  the  Court  the 
prior  settlement  claim  was  found  to  be  invalid.  In  sus- 
taining the  title  of  the  railroad  company  in  this  case  the 
Court  neither  expressed  nor  implied  an  opinion  that  the  act 
of  1876  would  not  be  operative  in  a  case  coming  within  the 
provisions  of  that  act,  but  only  that  the  act  was  not  opera- 
tive in  a  case  not  coming  within  its  provisions.  Yet,  upon 
the  rendition  of  the  judgment  of  the  court  in  tliat  case,  as 
thus  made  up  and  stated,  all  cases  depending  in  the  Land 
Office  to  which  the  act  of  1876  did  apply,  were  suspended 
at  departmental  instance,  and  none  have  since  been  acted 
upon. 

"Q.  What  other  instance  of  hardship  to  settlers  do  you 
recall?  A.  Referring  to  the  general  principle  that  home- 
stead entries  segregate  the  land  so  that  it  cannot  be  taken 
by  any  other  form  of  disposal,  I  may  mention  a  decision 
by  the  Secretary  in  1879,  known  as  the  Kniskern  case  (6 
Copp,,  50),  which  is  one  of  the  classes  of  cases  in  which 
the  principle  stated  is  not  applied  in  contests  between  set- 
tlers and  railroad  grants.  In  this  case  a  soldier's  home- 
stead entry  had  been  made  on  a  tract  of  land  in  Minne- 
sota, under  the  act  of  1861:  (R.  S.,  Sec.  2291),  which  per- 
mitted soldiers  in  actual  service  to  make  their  affidavits  of 
intention  to  claim  the  land  before  a  commanding  officer. 
Thousands  of  soldiers  availed  themselves  of  this  privilege, 
hoping,  perhaps,  to  return  from  the  field  and  have  a  farm 
to  go  to,  or  in  any  event  to  provide  a  home  for  family  or 
parents.      They  did   not  always   return.      Their  families 


176  A    CALL   TO   ACTION. 

could  not  always  move  out  on  the  wild  land.  So  that  in 
most  instances  the  required  residence  and  improvement 
was  wantinof,  and  the  entries  were  canceled  in  due  course 
of  time.  While  existing  on  the  records,  however,  such 
entries  operated  to  reserve  the  land  under  the  general  rules 
of  law  applicable  to  all  homestead  entries.  The  public 
knew  no  difference  between  these  soldiers'  homestead 
entries  and  homestead  entries  of  any  other  class.  Neither 
did  the  department  until  1879.  Then  it  was  held,  in  the 
Kniskern  decision,  that  the  soldier's  entry  in  that  particular 
case  yjsis  prima  facie  invalid  in  its  inception,  and  therefore, 
that  it  did  not  operate  to  except  the  land  from  a  railroad 
grant.  All  the  lands  that  had  been  covered  by  these 
entries  had  been  re-entered  by  other  persons  after  the 
homestead  entry  had  been  canceled.  The  soldier's  entry 
was  a  homestead  claim,  and  homestead  claims,  as  well  as 
rights,  were  excepted  from  the  grants.  For  fifteen  years 
settlers  had  been  educated  by  practice  and  precedent  to 
believe  that  second  entries  made  after  the  cancellation  of 
the  first  would  be  respected.  They  knew  that  neither 
themselves  nor  others  could  legally  go  on  the  land  until 
the  former  entry  had  been  adjudged  invalid.  They  did 
not  know  that  railroad  companies  had  rights  that  citizens 
did  not  possess.  Secretary  Chandler  had  ruled  in  a  printed 
decision  in  this  class  of  cases  that  they  had  not.  But  the 
settlers  were  undeceived  by  the  decision  in  the  Kniskern 
case;  and  those  to  whom  that  decision  applies  lose  their 
improved  farms,  which  go  to  the  railroad." 

Continuing  his  exposure  of  illegal  methods  and  practices 
the  law  clerk  says: 

' '  The  award  of  land  to  railroad  companies  when  no  claim 
has  been  made  by  the  companies,  is  an  incident  to  the 
exceptional  practice  of  the  office  in  favor  of  railroads  that 
does  not  exist  in  respect  to  any  other  class  of  grants.  In 
the  case  of  school-land  grants,  for  example,  the  office  acts 
upon  the  facts  of  record  and  the  law  applicable  thereto  in 
adjudicating  settlement  claims  on  the  school  sections,  noti- 
fying the  State  of  its  decisions,  when  the  State  may  appeal 
if  it  so  desires.  A  contest  between  the  State  and  settler  is 
never  assumed,  but  must  be  instituted  in  fact  if  the  State 


IMPKOVrDENT   DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  177 

desires  to  contest.  But  in  the  case  of  railroad  grants  settle- 
ment claims  are  treated  as  contests.  The  settler  is  required 
to  especially  notify  the  railroad  company  of  his  applica- 
tion to  enter  or  to  make  proof.  Notice  by  publication, 
which  in  all  other  cases  of  settlement  proof  is  notice  to 
the  world,  is  not  suflBcient  notice  to  a  railroad.  If  the  com- 
pany does  not  appear,  or  does  not,  in  fact,  desire  a  contest, 
it  makes  no  difference.  It  is  regarded  as  a  contest  in  any 
event,  and  the  strict  rules  governing  contests  is  applied  to 
the  settler,  who  I  have  reason  to  believe,  in  very  many 
cases,  even  where  the  settlement  claim  would  appear  to  be 
irrefutable,  is  driven  by  practices  of  the  office,  and  the  terms 
and  requirements  of  official  letters,  as  well  as  by  delays 
and  appeals,  into  compounding  with  the  railroad"  by  pur- 
chasing from  the  company  the  land  to  which  he  has  an 
apparent  right  under  the  law." 

The  thousands  ujid  tens  of  thousands  of  settlers  who 
have  been  forced  by  the  action  and  want  of  action  of  the 
Land  Office  to  buy  their  lands  of  the  railroad  companies 
when  they  had  good  right  to  enter  them  under  the  public 
land  laws,  will  be  able  to  appreciate  the  full  force  of  the 
above  testimony. 

The  law  clerk  further  says: 

"The  grant  for  the  St.  Paul  &  Pacific  extension  lines  in 
Minnesota,  after  its  renewal  by  Congress,  was  transferred 
by  the  State  to  certain  companies,  except  so  far  as  the 
lands  embraced  in  the  grant  were  not  occupied  by  actual 
settlers  on  March  1,  1877.  The  right  to  lands  so  occupied 
was  not  transferred  by  the  State  to  the  companies,  but  was 
expressly  withheld,  and  the  Governor  was  authorized  by 
act  of  the  Legislature  to  release  all  such  lands  to  the  United 
State?  in  favor  of  the  settlers.  The  releases  were  duly  exe- 
cuted by  the  Governor,  but  are  not  accepted  by  the  depart- 
ment, unless  the  lands  are  also  relinquished  by  the  railroad 
companies,  who  have  nothing  to  relinquish.  The  State 
officers  have  repeatedly  complained  of  the  action  of  the 
department  in  this  respect.  One  case  has  been  brought  to 
my  notice  where,  even  after  both  the  State  and  the  railroad 
12 


178  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

company  had  relinquished  in  favor  of  the  settler,  the  Land 
Office,  by  the  decision  as  prepared  for  the  Commissioner'f 
signature,  refused  to  allow  the  settlement  claim,  and  ques- 
tioned the  power  of  the  State  to  withhold  from  a  railroad 
company  any  lands  granted  to  the  State  by  Congress,  and 
made  subject  to  the  disposal  of  the  State  Legislature, 
although  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  had 
expressed  different  views." 

CONVEYING  LANDS  NEVER  GRANTED. 

It  appears  from  the  public  reports  of  the  General  Land 
Office  (see  annual  report,  1879,  pp.  83,  84,)  that  from  the 
commencement  of  the  railroad  land  grant  system  down  to 
1879  it  was  the  practice  of  that  office  to  patent  to  railroad 
companies  all  the  public  lands  within  railroad  limits,  with- 
out regard  to  excepting  clauses  of  the  granting  acts.  It 
would  seem  to  the  unprejudiced  observer  that  the  following 
clause,  which  appears  in  substantially  the  same  words  in  all 
grants,  was  sufficiently  plain  to  be  read  understandingly 
by  anyone: 

'''' Provided^  further^  That  any  and  all  lands  heretofore 
reserved  to  the  United  States  by  any  act  of  Congress,  or 
in  any  other  manner,  by  competent  authority,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  aiding  in  any  object  of  internal  improvement  or 
other  purpose  whatever,  be,  and  the  same  are  hereby 
reserved  and  excepted  from  the  operation  of  this  act, 
except  so  far  as  it  may  be  found  necessary  to  locate  the 
route  of  such  roads  through  such  reserved  lands,  in  which 
case  the  right  of  way  shall  be  granted,  subject  to  the 
approval  of  the  President  of  the  United  States." 

But  the  Interior  Department  obligingly  conferred  upon 
the  corporations  these  reserved  and  excepted  lands,  not 
only  without  pretext  or  shadow  of  law,  but  in  contemptu- 
ous disregard  of  the  plain,  precise,  and  absolute  terms  of 
the  law,  and  in  cruel  and  flagrant  violation  of  the  rights  of 
settlers,  and  with  utter  indifference  to  public  rights. 


IMPROVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  179 

The  Supreme  Court  could  not  sustain  this  direct  violation 
of  the  statute,  and  in  1875  it  declared  the  law  violated  and 
set  aside  a  larsje  number  of  patents  that  had  been  issued  to 
a  railroad  company  for  lands  embraced  in  an  Indian  reser- 
vation in  Kansas  (Osage  ceded  lands),  when  the  grant  was 
made. 

But  the  Land  Office  refused  to  apply  the  principles 
announced  by  the  Court  to  anj'  other  kind  of  reservations 
than  Indian  reservations.  They  seemed  to  be  doggedly 
determined  to  adhere  to  their  illegal  practice.  Then,  in 
1879,  the  court  again  announced  the  same  principle,  in 
regard  to  private  land  claim  reservations,  and  the  principle 
was  haltingly  and  partially  adopted  by  the  Land  Office 
even  then. 

In  the  Commissioners'  report  for  1878  (page  83)  it  is 
said: 

'  'The  Supreme  Court  decision  in  the  case  of  Newhall  vs. 
Sanger,  following  the  Osage  ceded  lands  decision,  had  par- 
ticular reference,  to  the  attachment  of  railroad  rights  upon 
lands  covered  at  the  time  of  the  railroad  grant  by  a  foreign 
grant  claim,  and  settled  the  question  adversely  to  the  rail- 
road company,  holding  that  the  lands  reserved  for  the 
adjustment  of  the  foreign  grant  claim  at  the  time  of  making 
the  railroad  grant  did  not  pass  under  the  latter,  and  became 
a  part  of  the  public  domain." 

The  decision  of  the  Court,  both  in  the  Osage  ceded  lands 
case  (Leavenworth,  Lawrence  &  Galveston  R.  R.  Co.  vs. 
The  United  States)  and  in  the  private  land  claim  case 
(Newhall  vs.  Sanger)  laid  down  the  broad  principle  of  the 
law  applying  to  all  reservations.  The  Land  Office 
restricted  its  obedience  to  the  precise  cases  upon  which 
suit  was  brought. 

But  the  Commissioner  admits  the  fact  and  extent  of  the 
previous  illegal  practice: 


ISO  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

"Prior  to  the  rendition  of  this  decision  the  department 
had  held  that  the  railroad  grant  attached  to  such  lands  on 
their  release  from  reservation,  and  under  such  construction, 
thousands  of  acres  were  patented  to  the  companies,  to 
which,  under  the  before-mentioned  decision,  they  were  not 
entitled  "  (Land  Office  report,  1879,  p.  84). 

The  law  clerk,  in  his  testimony,  refers  to  the  wholly 
illegal  practice  of  the  Land  Office  in  patenting  reserved 
lands  to  railroad  companies,  to  the  sullen  and  incomplete 
recognition  by  the  department  of  the  correct  principles  of 
law  upheld  by  the  Court,  and  to  the  practical  defeat,  by 
departmental  law  juggling,  of  the  decision  of  the  Court  in 
the  Moquelemas  case.     He  says: 

Among  the  exceptions  to  railroad  grants  are  lands  in  a 
state  of  reservation  for  any  purpose  at  date  of  grant  or 
attachment  of  railroad  right.  But  it  was  the  practice  of 
the  Land  Department  for  a  period  of  twenty-five  years  to 
award  to  the  railroads  the  lands  thus  excepted  from  their 
grants  whenever  the  reservation  ceased.  In  all  these  cases 
settlers  in  great  numbers  had  gone  on  the  lands  after  their 
restoration  to  the  public  domain,  but  the  lands,  together 
with  the  settlers'  improvements,  were  by  departmental 
decisions,  turned  over  to  the  railroads. 

In  1875,  the  Supreme  Court  set  aside  patents  that  had 
been  issued  to  the  Leavenworth,  Lawrence  and  Galveston 
Railroad  Company  for  several  hundred  thousand  acres  of 
land  m  Kansas,  which  had  been  embraced  in  an  Indian 
reservation  at  the  date  of  the  railroad  grant.  At  the  same 
time  the  Court  decreed  null  and  void  the  title  that  had  been 
given  to  the  Western  Pacific  Railroad  Company  for  lands 
which  at  date  of  grant  were  embraced  within  the  limits  of  a 
Mexican  claim  that  was  afterwards  adjudged  invalid.  The 
Court  said  in  these  cases  that  the  reservation  was  an  abso- 
lute exclusion  of  the  land  from  the  railroad  grants,  and  that 
it  made  no  difference  what  afterwards  became  of  it.  When 
the  reservation  ceased  the  land  reverted  to  the  public 
domain,  and  did  not  go  to  the  grant. 


IMPROVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  181 

"The  legal  principles  stated  by  the  Court  have  met  with 
a  limited  concurrence  in  the  practice  of  the  Land  Depart- 
ment. 

"They  have  not  generally  been  applied  to  other  classes  of 
reservations  than  the  particular  classes  involved  in  the 
cases  before  the  Court.  For  example,  mineral  reservations 
have  not  been  brought  under  the  rule  of  the  Court,  but 
lands  reserved  as  mineral  have,  upon  the  extinguishment 
of  the  reservation,  been  uniformly  awarded  to  the  railroads. 

"The  case  in  Newhall  vs.  Sanger  (92  U.  S.,  761)  was 
that  of  the  claimed  Moquelemas  grant,  a  Mexican  private 
land  claim,  which  was  sub  judice  at  date  of  railroad  grant. 
All  that  portion  of  the  land  within  the  claimed  limits  of 
the  Mexican  grant  which  fell  within  railroad  sections  had 
been  patented  to  the  railroad  company  upon  the  final 
adjudication  that  the  Mexican  claim  was  invalid.  The  case 
before  the  Court  was  a  test  case,  and  the  decision  of  the 
court  holding  the  railroad  title  null  and  void  was  a  judicial 
determination  of  the  legal  status  of  all  the  land  involved 
in  this  controversy.  But  the  department  refuses  to  accept 
the  judgment  of  the  Court  as  conclusive  except  as  to  the 
the  single  tract  that  was  actually  in  the  particular  case 
before  the  Court,  and  holds  that  each  individual  settler  on 
the  same  land  must  obtain  a  separate  decree  in  his  own 
case  before  a  patent  can  be  issued  to  him  for  the  land  to 
which  he  is  entitled  by  law  as  settled  by  the  Court. 

"Q.  Have  the  laws  generally  been  literally  construed  in 
favor  of  the  railroad?  A.  Yes,  sir.  The  principle  of  law 
appKcable  to  public  grants — that  they  ought  to  be  con- 
strued strictly  against  the  grantees — has  not  been  observed, 
although  the  exceptions  to  the  grant  are  very  strictly  ruled 
against . 

"Q.  That  is  to  say,  that  the  grants  have  been  construed 
very  liberally  to  the  grantee  and  against  the  settler?  A. 
Yes,  sir.  It  is  a  common  rule  of  construction  that  if  there 
are  words  in  a  granting  act  which  of  themselves  import  a 
present  grant,  then  the  grant  is  in  prcesentl^  although  the 
general  words  of  present  grant  may  be  restrained  by  par- 
ticular words  in  subsequent  parts  of  the  same  act.  Among 
the  important  decisions  which  would  appear  to  have  fol- 
lowed this  rule  are  the  decisions  of   the  Secretary  in  the 


182 


A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 


case  of  the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad  grant  (Commission- 
er's annual  report,  1879,  p.  109),  and  in  the  case  of  the 
Atlantic  &  Pacific  Railroad  grant,  accepting  the  opinion  of 
the  Attorney-General  of  October  26,  1880  (T  Copp.,  166). 
The  authorities  relied  upon  in  these  and  similar  decisions 
and  opinions  are  the  authorities  in  cases  where  no  condi- 
tion except  the  designation  of  the  granted  land  was  neces- 
sary to  vest  the  estate  in  the  grantee,  as  in  the  case  of 
Greene's  Heirs,  2  Wheaton,  196,  and  Schulenberg  vs.  Har- 
riman,  21  Wall.,  44.  In  the  cases  to  which  these  authori- 
ties were  applied  there  were  several  conditions  precedent 
to  be  performed  before  the  estate  could  vest,  among  which 
was  the  construction  of  the  road." 

The  following  table  will  aid  the  reader  to  form  some  con- 
ception of  the  frightful  magnitude  of  the  territorial  conquest 
achieved  by  the  corporations  during  the  latter  half  of  the 
present  century: 

Land  grants  made  by  Congress  to  States  and  corporations  for  rail- 
roads, canals  and  wagon-road  purposes  prior  and  subsequent  to 
March  4,  1861. 

(Compiled  from  the  official  records  of  the  General  Land  Office.) 


Grants. 


Acreage 
Granted 


Prior  to  March  4,  1861, 

TO    STATES. 

Grants  for  railroad  purposes 

Grants  for  wagon  purposes 

Grants  for  canal  purposes 

Grants  for  river-improvement  purposes 

Total 

(No  grants  to  corporations  were  made  hy  Congress  prior  to 
1861.) 

Subsequent  to  March  4,  1S61. 

TO    STATES. 

Grants  for  railroad  purposes 

Grants  for  wagon-road  purposes 

Grants  for  canal  purposes 

Grants  for  river-improvements 

Total 

DIRECTLY  TO  CORPORATIONS. 

Grants  for  railroad  purposes 

Total  of  all  grants  made  subsequent  to  March  4, 1861  . . 
Grand  total  for  the  purposes  named 


30,470,920.25 

25],;-l53.78 

3,001.189.74 

1,406,210.80 


36,029,074.80 


17.775,624.86 

2,530,370.84 

699,635.05 

569,382.23 


21,575,022.03 
163,643,944.83 
185,218,966.86 


221,248,641.47 


mPKOVIDENT   DISPOSAL   OF   PUBLIC   LANDS.  183 

About  2,500,000  acres  of  this  were  granted  to  aid  in  the 
construction  of  canals  prior  to  1850.  All  the  rest  fron 
1850  to  1871  inclusive. 

The  State  of  Illinois  contains  36,000,000  acres,  Iowa 
35,000,000,  Minnesota  53,000,000,  Missouri  44,000,000, 
Kansas  52,000,000;  and  yet  the  above  table  discloses  the 
startling  fact  that  an  empire — the  inheritance  and  hope  of 
our  children — greater  in  area  than  the  four  States  named, 
has  been  ruthlessly  and  wickedly  wrenched  from  the  people 
and  bestowed  upon  the  corporate  barons  of  the  period. 
The  consequences  of  this  stupendous  crime  will  be  felt  to 
the  end  of  time,  and  no  man  will  ever  live  upon  the  earth 
who  will  be  able  to  trace  its  malignant  ramifications. 

With  the  terrible  facts  related  in  this  chapter  fresh  in  his 
memory,  we  request  the  reader  to  go  back  and  re-read  the 
quotation  at  the  head  of  this  narrative  taken  from  the  Free 
Soil  Platform  of  1852.  He  will  then  be  prepared  to  under- 
stand to  some  extent  the  terrible  crime  which  has  been 
committed  against  the  people  in  connection  with  our  pub- 
lic domain. 


CHAPTKR    V. 


FINANCE  IN  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

No  occurrence  in  the  history  of  our  race  so  vividly  exhib- 
its the  importance  of  money  in  human  affairs  as  a  condi- 
tion of  war.  Thoughtful  minds  understand,  of  course,  the 
continuous  though  unobtrusive  demand  which  is  constantly 
made  by  every  rational  adult  person,  for  money  in  order  to 
supply  his  daily  wants.  But  it  is  only  when  great  aggre. 
gations  of  individuals  are  hurried  together,  in  the  form  of 
an  army,  and  carried  away  from  their  accustomed  chan- 
nels of  trade,  that  the  whole  population,  including  officials 
and  law  makers,  awake  to  the  pressing  necessity  for  an 
ample  supply  of  money.  Of  course  the  demand  for  food, 
raiment,  shelter,  and  compensation  for  services  are  ever 
present  with  us;  but  in  a  state  of  peace  each  individual 
bears  his  own  burdens  and  conceals  as  best  he  can  his  anxi- 
eties and  the  wants  which  he  is  unable  to  satisfy.  But 
when  armies  are  assembled  and  navies  are  to  be  equipped, 
human  wants  are  thrown  into  the  foreground  and  society 
utters  one  universal  cry  for  money — money  to  sustain  the 
honor,  money  to  save  the  life  of  the  nation — and  extraor- 
dinary efforts  are  then  always  made  to  satisfy  the  demand. 

It  is  clear,  however,  upon  a  moment's  reflection,  that  the 
demand  for  money  among  those  who  constitute  tJie  army 
was  greater  before  the  war  occurred  than  afterwards. 
Wages  are  higher  in  peace,  and  the  style  of  living,  quality 
of  food  and  cloth'ng,  more  expensive  in  peace  than  in 
war.      If,  therefore,  the  money  in  circulation  in  time  of 


FINANCE   IN   WAR   AND    PEACE.  185 

peace  is  sufficient  to  meet  the  wants  of  trade,  it  is  clear 
that  it  would  be  ample,  if  applied,  to  meet  the  wants  of 
the  same  number  of  persons  in  war,  when  the  wages  and 
cost  of  living  are  diminished.  The  fact  that  so  many  men 
have  ceased  to  be  producers  can  niake  no  difference  in  the 
existing  volume  of  money.  In  fact,  diminished  production 
curtails  the  demand  for  money. 

Labor  can  create  wealth  but  it  cannot  create  money.  It 
requires  a  statute  to  speak  money  into  existence.  It  is  the 
creature  of  law,  not  the  product  of  nature.  It  can  neither 
be  made  by  the  march  of  battalions  nor  by  plowing  in  the 
field,  but  it  can  be  made  to  change  hands  by  both. 

The  beneficial  effects  of  the  bountiful  issue  of  money  in 
times  of  public  peril,  verify  in  the  strongest  possible  man- 
Qcr  the  necessity  for  an  adequate  circulating  medium  at  all 
times;  and  they  bring  out  in  strong  light  the  duty  of  a  great 
and  powerful  Government  to  furnish  its  citizens  with  a  con- 
stant non-fluctuating  money  supply. 

The  history  of  modern  nations  is  trumpet-tongue d  with 
warnings  against  all  attempts  to  return  to  ante-bellum  fiscal 
methods  and  financial  policies  after  the  perils  of  war  have 
passed. 

THE  TWO  WITNESSES. 

It  is  our  purpose  in  this  chapter  to  introduce  for  the 
consideration  of  the  reader  the  most  important  events,  in 
war  and  peace,  connected  with  the  financial  history  of 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  the  two  leading 
nations  of  modern  times. 

It  is  said  that  at  the  dawn  of  creation  the  morning 
stars  sang  together.  So  now  the  ages  utter  their  authori- 
tative speech.  The  voice  of  a  dcsparting  Century  is  per- 
suasive, eloquent  and  full  of  majesty.  There  is  no  parlance 
with  which  it  can  be  compared.     It  is  the  solemn  allocution 


186  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

of  three  generations  of  human  beings  enunciated  in  artic- 
lilo  mortis  and  compressed  into  a  single  narrative.  And 
we  submit  that  the  financial  experiments  of  the  two  most 
enlightened  nations  of  Christendom,  filling  to  the  brim,  as 
they  jointly  do,  the  full  measure  of  the  Nineteenth  Centuiy, 
are  clearly  entitled  to  the  candid  consideration  of  mankind. 
The  instruction  which  such  enlightened  and  protracted  ex- 
perience imparts  cannot  be  disregarded  nor  cast  aside  with 
impunity , 

ENGLAND  FROM   1793  TO  1796,  INCLUSIVE. 

The  internal  and  external  condition  of  Great  Britain 
during  the  years  1793-6 — the  initial  epoch  in  the  protracted 
struggle  for  the  overthrow  of  Napoleon — forms  one  of  the 
most  instructive  chapters  in  modern  history.  It  exhibits  in 
bold  and  instructive  contrast  the  helplessness  of  a  Govern- 
ment enfeebled  and  stupefied  by  the  consciousness  of  an 
empty  treasury,  as  compared  with  the  vigorous  self  reliance 
of  a  powerful  Nation  strengthened  by  ample  means  with 
which  to  defend  itself  at  home  and  abroad. 

We  trust  we  may  be  pardoned  for  digressing  far  enough 
at  this  point  to  call  the  attention  of  the  reader  to  the 
remarkable  similarity  between  the  life  of  a  nation  and  the 
life  of  a  single  individual,  in  this  regard.  It  is  said,  and  truth- 
fully as  we  believe,  that  in  the  life  of  the  average  citizen 
we  have  in  miniature  the  life  of  a  whole  Nation.  Nations 
are  made  up  of  individuals  and  hence  they  must  have 
the  same  wants,  ambitions,  vicissitudes  and  history.  The 
individual  cramped  and  discouraged  by  poverty  represents 
the  Nation  paralj^zed  by  m  collapsed  treasury.  Tlie  former 
drops  to  the  bottom  of  the  social  structure  where  he  will 
speedily  be  made  to  feel  the  weight  of  everything  above 
him;  the  latter  is  at  the  mercy  of  its  more  powerful  neigh- 
bors and  is  liable  to  lose  its  place  on  the  map  of  the  world. 


FINANCE   IN   WAE   AND   PEACE.  187 

During  the  period  above  named  England  had  met  with 
unbroken  disaster.  She  had  secured  but  one  victory  at 
sea — that  of  Howe.  She  was  forced  ignominiously  from 
Flanders,  Holland  and  the  north  of  German}^  Napoleon 
had  gained  his  victory  at  Toulon  where  the  British  fleet 
had  been  forced  to  surrender  the  city  and  retire  before  the 
guns  of  the  rising  young  Corsican.  Every  nation,  except 
Austria  and  Russia,  had  broken  off  its  alliance  with 
England,  and  hostility  was  manifested  everywhere  to  her 
arms.  To  add  to  her  distress  a  severe  commercial  panic — 
a  frightful  financial  rigor  of  prolonged  duration,  which  had 
finally  to  be  relieved  by  a  Government  loan  to  business 
classes,  seized  upon  the  channels  of  trade  and  finally  term- 
inated in  a  run  upon  the  bank.  This  was  followed  by 
widespread  mutiny  in  the  fleet.  Driven  by  disaster  to  the 
very  brink  of  ruin,  the  Government  was  forced  at  length  to 
suspend  cash  payments.  The  result  of  this  stroke  of  finan- 
cial policy  which  included  the  resort  to  an  exclusive  paper 
currency  in  the  spring  of  1797,  was  almost  miraculous, 
Upon  this  point  we  introduce  the  testimony  of  an  enlight- 
ened English  historian,  Sir  Archibald  Alison,  author  of 
"  The  History  of  Europe  during  the  French  Revolution.'' 
We  quote  from  a  book  written  by  him  and  published  in 
Edinburgh  and  London  in  1845,  entitled  "England  in 
1815  and  1845,  or  a  Sufficient  and  a  Contracted  Currency:" 

FROM  1797  TO  1815. 

"  The  next  eighteen  years  of  the  war,  from  1797  to  1815, 
were,  as  all  the  world  knows,  the  most  glorious,  and  taken 
as  a  whole,  the  most  prosperous  which  Great  Britain  had 
ever  known.  Ushered  in  by  a  combination  of  circum- 
stances the  most  calamitous,  both  with  reference  to  external 
security  and  internal  industry,  it  terminated  in  a  blaze  of 
glory  and  a  flood  of  prosperity  which  have  never,  since  the 
beginning  of  the  world,  descended  upon  any  nation.  Hardly 


188  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

had  the  run  upon  the  bank  shaken  to  its  center  the  whole 
fabric  of  our  commercial  industry,  and  the  mutinies  at  the 
Nore,  Plymouth  and  oflp  Cadiz  paralyzed  the  arm  of  our 
naval  defenders,  when  the  victories  of  St.  Vincent  and 
Camperdown  again  restored  to  us  the  dominion  of  the  seas; 
and  ere  long  the  thunderbolts  of  the  Nile  and  Trafalgar 
prostrated  the  naval  strength  of  the  enemy,  and  the  vic- 
tories of  Wellington  first  arrested,  and  at  length  broke  his 
military  power.  Prosperity,  universal  and  unheard  of,  per- 
vaded every  department  ef  the  empire.  Our  colonial  pos- 
sessions encircled  the  earth — the  whole  West  Indian  islands 
had  fallen  into  our  hands;  an  empire  of  sixty  millions  of 
men  in  Hindostan  acknowledged  our  rule;  Java  was  added 
to  our  eastern  possessions;  and  the  flag  of  France  had  dis- 
appeared from  every  station  beyond  the  sea.  Agriculture, 
commerce  and  manufacture  at  home  had  increased  in  an 
unparalleled  ratio;  the  landed  proprietors  were  in  affluence; 
wealth  to  an  unheard-of  extent  had  been  created  among  the 
farmers;  the  soil,  daily  increasing  in  fertility  and  breadth 
of  cultivated  land,  had  become  almost  adequate  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  rapidly  increasing  population;  our 
exports,  imports,  and  tonnage  had  more  than  doubled  since 
the  war  began.  And  though  distress,  especially  during 
1810  and  1811,  had  at  times  been  severely  experienced 
among  the  manufacturing  operatives,  yet,  on  the  whole, 
and  in  average  years,  their  condition  was  one  of  extraordi- 
nary prosperity.  The  revenue  raised  by  taxation  within 
theyear  had  risen  from  21,000,000^  in  1796,  to  72,000,000? 
in  1815;  the  total  expenditure  from  taxes  and  loans  had 
reached  in  1811  and  1815,  the  enormous  amount  of  117,- 
000,OOOZ  each  year. 

"  In  the  years  1813  and  1814-,  being  the  twentieth  and 
twenty-first  of  the  war,  Great  Britain  had  above  a  million 
of  men  in  arms  in  Europe  and  Asia,  and  remitted  11,000,- 
000^  yearly  in  subsidies  to  continental  powers.  Yet  was 
this  prodigious  and  unheard  of  expenditure  so  far  from 
exhausting  either  the  capital  or  resources  of  the  country, 
that  the  loan  in  1814  was  obtained  at  a  lower  rate  than  that 
paid  at  the  commencement  of  the  war;  although  the  annual 
loan  at  its  close  was  above  35,000,000/^,  and  the  popula- 
tion of  the  empire  at  that  period  was  onl}^  eighteen  millions, 


FINANCE   IN   WAR   AND   PEACE.  189 

just  two-thirds  of  what  it  was  found  to  be  by  the  census  of 
1841." 

EESTJMPTION,  1819  AND    FOLLOWING. 

But  England  had  resolved  to  resume  specie  payments  at 
whatever  costs  and  made  preparations  to  that  end.  She 
demonetized  silver  in  1816,  declared  that  it  should  only  be 
a  legal  tender  for  forty  shillings  (about  $10.00),  stopped  its 
coinage  at  the  mints  and  passed  an  act  to  resume  in  the 
year  1819.  To  accomplish  this  it  was  provided  that  the 
circulating  paper  currency  should  be  funded  into  various 
kinds  of  public  securities.  We  will  let  the  historian  before 
mentioned  testify  as  to  the  direful  effects  of  this  step  upon 
the  fortunes  of  the  people.      Mr.  Alison  says: 

"Since  the  year  1819  the  empire  has  exhibited  the  most 
extraordinary  spectacle  that  the  world  has  perhaps  ever 
witnessed;  and  it  is  to  it  that  we  earnestly  request  the  atten- 
tion of  our  readers,  because  then  began  the  series  of  causes 
and  effects  in  which  we  have  ever  since  been,  and  still  are 
involved.  Considered  in  one  point  of  view  there  never  was 
a  nation  which,  in  an  equal  space  of  time  had  made  so 
extraordinary  a  progress.  Its  population  had  advanced 
from  20,600,000  in  L819,  to  28,000,000  in  1844;  its  imports 
had  increased  from  30,000,000/.  in  the  former  period,  to 
70,000,000/.  in  the  latter;  its  exports  had  advanced  during 
the  same  period  from  44.000,000/.  to  130,000,000/.;  its 
shipping  from  2,350,000  tons  to  3,900,000.  There  never, 
perhaps,  was  such  a  growth  in  these  great  limbs  of  indus- 
try in  so  short  a  period  in  any  other  state.  Nor  had  agri- 
culture been  behind  other  staple  branches  of  national 
industry.  Its  produce  had  kept  pace  with  the  increase 
unparalleled  in  an  old  state,  in  the  population,  as  well  as 
the  still  more  rapid  multiplication  of  cattle  aud  horses  for 
the  purpose  of  use  and  luxury;  and  amidst  this  extraordi- 
nary growth  of  consumption  the  still  more  extraordinary 
fact  was  exhibited  of  the  average  importation  of  grain 
steadily  declining  from  the  commencement  of  the  century, 
till  at  length,  anterior  to  the  six  bad  seasons  in  succession, 


190  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

which  commenced  in  1836,  it  had  sunk  to  40,000  qnarters 
on  an  average  of  five  preceding  years,  being  scarce  an 
hundred  and  twentieth  part  of  the  annual  consumption 
of  men  and  animals,  which  exceeds  60,000,000  quar- 
ters. And  what  is  most  extraordinary  of  all,  the  returns  of 
the  income  tax,  when  laid  on,  even  in  the  year  1842,  a 
period  of  severe  and  unprecedented  commercial  depression, 
proved  the  existence  in  Great  Britain  alone,  of  200,000,OOOZ. 
of  annual  income  of  persons  enjoying  above  150/.  each;  of 
which  immense  sum  about  150,000,000/.  was  from  the  fruits 
of  realized  capital,  either  in  land  or  some  other  durable 
investment.  It  is  probable  that  such  an  accumulation  of 
wealth  never  existed  before  in  any  single  state,  not  even  in 
Rome  at  the  period  of  its  highest  splendor. 

"Considered  in  another  view,  there  never  was  a  period  in 
which  a  greater  amount  of  financial  embarrassment  has 
been  experienced  by  the  government,  or  more  widespread 
and  acute  suffering  endured  by  the  people.  So  far  has  the 
exchequer  been  from  sharing  in  the  flood  of  wealth  which 
has  thus  been  so  profusely  poured  into  the  empire,  that  it 
has,  with  the  exception  of  two  or  three  years  of  extraordi- 
nary and  perilous  prosperity,  been  during  the  whole  of  this 
period,  in  a  state  of  difiiculty.  This  steadily  increased  till 
it  at  last  brought  the  nation  to  such  a  pass  that  it  was  extri- 
cated from  absolute  insolvency  only  by  the  re-imposition, 
during  European  peace,  of  the  war  income  tax.  Not  only 
was  tiie  provident  and  far  seeing  system  of  Mr.  Pitt  for  the 
redemption  of  the  debt  practically  abandoned  during  the 
necessities  of  this  calamitous  period,  but  the  national 
account  turned  the  other  way,  and  the  annual  deficiency 
gradually  increased  till  it  had  reached  the  enormous  amount 
of  4,000,000/.  annually,  and  added,  in  six  years  of  peace, 
no  less  than  11,000,000/.  to  the  amount  of  the  national 
debt.  The  nation,  during  the  late  years  of  the  war,  pros- 
pered and  experienced  general  well  being  under  an  annual 
taxation  of  Y2, 000, 000?.,  drawn  from  eighteen  million  of 
souls;  in  the  latter  years  of  the  peace  it  has,  with  the 
utmost  difiiculty,  drawn  50,000,000/  from  a  population  of 
twenty- seven  millions.  Wages  in  the  former  period  were 
high,  employment  abundant,  the  working  classes  prosper- 
ous, with  an  export  of  British  and  colonial  produce  of  from 


FINANCE    IX   WAR   AND    PEACE.  191 

i5,000,000?  to  50,000,000?,  annually;  in  the  latter,  wages 
were  in  many  trades  low,  employment  diflBcult,  suffering 
general,  with  an  annual  exportation  to  the  amount  oi 
120,000,000?  to  130,000,000?. 

*'But  extraordinary  and  apparently  inexplicable  as  these 
facts  are,  they  are  yet  exceeded  in  marvel  by  the  details  of 
our  social  and  economical  state  during  this  period  of  unpar- 
alleled increase  in  our  material  resources.  It  may  safely 
be  affirmed  that  the  anxiety  and  distress  which  were  felt 
during  that  brilliant  period  of  national  growth  has  never 
been  surpassed,  at  least  in  a  state  possessing  the  external 
mark  of  prosperity.  It  is  well  known  to  what  straits  the 
bank  of  England  has  been  reduced  on  two  different  occa- 
sions in  that  period.  In  December,  1S25,  it  was,  as  all  the 
world  knows,  in  very  great  difficulties.  We  were,  as  Mr. 
Huskisson  said,  'within  twenty- four  hours  of  barter.'  In 
November,  1839,  the  stock  of  specie  was  reduced  2,800,000?, 
and  the  bank  was  under  the  necessity  of  negotiating 
10,000,000?  sterling  from  the  Bank  of  France.       *       *       * 

"The  distress  among  the  mercantile  classes  for  j'ears 
after  the  dreadful  crisis  of  December,  1825 — of  the  agricul- 
tural interests  during  the  low  prices  from  1832  to  1S35,  and 
of  the  whole  commercial  community  from  1837  to  1812  was 
extreme.  Wages  sank,  during  these  disastrous  periods  in 
the  manufacturing  districts,  so  low  that  they  barely  sufficed 
with  the  great  bulk  of  workers,  especially  females,  for  the 
support  of  existence.  Serious  insurrections  broke  out  in 
1820  and  1842,  both  in  England  and  Scotland,  ostensibly 
for  poKtical  purposes,  but  mainly  occasioned  by  the  general 
distress  among  manufacturing  operatives,  as  was  decisively 
proved  by  their  entire  extinction  when  labor  again  received 
a  remunerating  return. 

"  Farming  capital  in  the  agricultural  districts  was  during 
their  distress,  everywhere  grievously  abridged — in  many 
places  totally  annihilated.  Ireland  during  the  whole  period 
has  been  in  a  state  of  smothered  insurrection;  and  for  the 
last  four  years  has  convulsed  the  country  by  the  fierce 
demand  for  the  repeal  of  the  union,  which  was  only  pre- 
vented from  breaking  out  into  open  rebellion  by  the  con- 
tinued presence  in  tliat  island  of  30.000  armed  men 
between  the  forces  and  armed  police.     The  manufacturing 


192  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

districts  of  Scotland  were  involved,  during  the  same  period 
in  such  distress,  that  in  1837  the  mortality  in  Glasgow 
was  1  in  32;  in  1842,  1  in  30;  and  in  the  latter  year  32,000 
persons  took  typhus  fever  in  that  city,  and  the  deaths  were 
upward  of  ten  thousand  out  of  a  population  not  exceeding 
at  that  period  280,000  souls. 

"The  late  poor  law  commission  has  accumulated  evi- 
dence proving  to  demonstration  the  existence  of  severe 
and  unheard  of  distress  among  the  poor  of  all  parts  of 
Scotland,  generally  esteemed,  and  in  some  respects  with 
reason,  the  best  conditioned  part  of  the  empire.  The  poor 
law  commission  for  Ireland  has  shown  that  there  are  in 
that  fertile  land  no  less  than  2,300,000  persons  in  a  state  of 
almost  permanent  destitution.  The  heart  sickens  at  the 
proof,  numerous  and  incontrovertible,  which  the  parlia- 
mentary reports  for  the  last  ten  years  have  accumulated,  of 
wide-spread  and  often  long-enduring  suffering  among 
laboring  poor  in  England.     *     *     *      * 

"  While  wealth  was  increasing  to  an  unparalleled  extent 
among  the  commercial  classes,  suffering  and  distress  as 
generally  ensued  among  the  rural  inhabitants;  and  the  mul- 
titude of  ruined  fortunes  among  them  rendered  it  certain 
that  at  no  distant  period  the  old  race  of  landed  proprietors 
woald,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  magnates,  be  rooted  out, 
and  their  place  supplied  by  a  new  set  of  purchasers  from 
the  commercial  towns. 

"While  population  was  advancing  with  unparalleled 
strides  in  the  manufacturing  districts,  pauperism  even 
more  than  kept  pace  with  it  all;  and  the  extraordinary  fact 
has  now  been  revealed  by  statistical  researches  that,  in  an 
age  of  unbounded  wealth,  and  general  and  long  continued 
peace,  a  seventh  part  of  the  whole  inhabitants  of  the  Brit- 
tish  Islands  are  in  a  state  of  destitution,  or  painfully  sup- 
ported by  legal  relief.     *         *        * 

"  While  the  returns  of  the  income-tax  have  demonstrated 
that  seventy  thousand  persons  in  Great  Britain  possess 
among  them  an  annual  revenue  of  200,000,000^.  a  year,  or 
about  2,800^.  each  on  an  average,  the  melancholy  fact  has 
been  revealed  by  the  result  of  the  attempts  to  increase  the 
national  revenue  by  means  of  indirect  taxation  (tariff),  that 
that  source  of  income  can  no  longer  be  relied  on ;   and  in  a 


FINANCE   IN   WAK   AND   PEACE.  193 

time  of  profound,  and  at  the  close  of  a  period  of  long  con- 
tinued peace,  it  has  become  indispensable  to  recur  to  an 
assessment  on  property  and  direct  taxation,  as  it  was  in 
Rome  in  the  decaying  periods  of  the  empire. 

"The  blue  folios  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament  teem  with 
authentic  and  decisive  evidence  of  the  vast  increase  during 
the  last  thirty  years  of  crime  and  frequent  destitution 
among  the  working  classes  in  all  parts  of  the  empire. 
Every  four  or  five  years  a  brief,  feverish  period  of  gam- 
bling, extravagance  and  commercial  prosperity  is  suc- 
ceeded by  a  long  and  dreary  season  of  anxiety,  distress, 
and  depression .  Frightful  strikes  among  the  workmen, 
attended  with  boundless  distress  among  and  hideous  demo- 
cratic tyranny  over  them  invariably  succeeded  in  the  close 
of  those  periods  of  suffering,  as  pestilence  stalks  in  the 
rear  of  famine;  and  popular  insurrection  has  become  so 
common,  that  it  is  a  rare  thing  to  see  two  years  pass  over 
without  martial  law  being  of  necessity  practically  enforced 
in  some  part  of  the  empire.  And,  as  if  to  bring  this  chaos 
of  contradictions  to  a  perfect  climax,  at  the  very  time 
when  unheard  of  exertions  have  been  made  for  the  educa- 
tion of  the  people  in  every  part  of  the  empire,  and  the 
newly  aroused  fervor  of  religion  in  all  denominations  of 
christians  has  drawn  forth  unparalleled  efforts  for  the  dif- 
fusion of  the  gospel  among  the  working  classes,  crime  has 
made  unexampled  progress  in  every  part  of  the  empire; 
and  the  scandal  has  been  exhibited  of  serious  and  detected 
offences  having  multiplied  sevenfold  in.  a  realm  which,  in 
the  same  period,  has  not  added  more  than  seventy  per  cent 
to  the  amount  of  the  population;  in  otlier  words,  during 
a  period  of  unparalleled  growth  of  wealth,  and  effort  at 
instruction,  crime  has  augmented  ten  times  as  fast  as  the 
the  numbers  of  the  people. 

"We  repeat  it — this  state  of  things  is  unparalleled  in  any 
other  age  of  the  world  or  quarter  of  the  globe.  We  say 
this  after  due  consideration,  and  a  full  appreciation  of  the 
unutterable  and  now  forgotten  miseries  in  which  the  world 
in  general,  and  ourselves  among  the  rest,  have  been 
involved  in  former  ages,  from  the  ravages  of  foreign  war, 
or  the  grinding  of  domestic  oppression.  *  *  * 
What  we  do  say  is  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  the  world, 

13 


19^  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

is  the  co-existence  of  so  much  suffering  in  one  portion  of  the 
people,  with  so  much  prosperity  in  another;  of  unbounded 
private  wealth,  with  unceasing  public  penury;  of  constant 
increase  in  the  National  resources,  with  constant  diminu- 
tion in  the  comforts  of  a  considerable  portion  of  the  com- 
munity; of  the  utmost  freedom  consistent  with  order,  ever 
yet  existing  upon  earth,  with  a  degree  of  discontent  which 
keeps  the  j^ation  constantly  on  the  verge  of  insurrection; 
of  the  most  strenuous  efforts  for  the  moral  and  religious 
improvement  of  the  poor,  with  an  increase  of  crime  unpar- 
alleled at  the  same  or,  perhaps,  any  other  period  in  any 
civilized  state.         *         *         * 

"Let  us  not  deceive  ourselves,  therefore,  nor  ascribe  to 
the  laws  of  nature  the  misery  arising  from  the  erroneous 
tendency  of  human  institutions.  There  is  food  enough  in 
the  land,  and  to  spare;  the  surplus  of  it  produced  by  the 
cultivators  is  daily  and  rapidly  on  the  increase.  The  agri- 
culture of  Great  Britain  has  stood  a  strain  and  kept  pace 
with  an  increase  in  the  demand  for  its  produce  during  the 
last  fifty  years  to  which  few  parallels  are  to  be  found  in  the 
history  of  mankind.  Nor  are  our  resources  by  any  means 
approaching  their  natural  limits.  On  the  contrary,  they 
are  as  yet  only  in  their  infancy;  and  by  a  vigorous  appli- 
cation of  science  and  industry  the  land  could  with  ease  be 
made  to  maintain  three  times  its  present  number  of  inhabi- 
tants. Capital  exists,  and  to  profusion,  amply  sufficient  to 
give  full  and  profitable  employment  to  the  whole  commu- 
nity. Labor  adequate  to  any  possible  expansion  of  indus- 
try is  at  hand.  Abc/e  two  millions  of  destitute  persons 
are  pining  for  employment  in  Ireland  alone.  Our  colonies 
are  increasing  with  unheard  of  rapidity.  Nearly  two  mil- 
lions of  souls  now  exist  in  British  North  America;  and  the 
hundred  and  forty  thousand  in  Australia  alone  consumed 
in  1843  no  less  than  1,211, 815^  worth  of  British  produce,  or 
nearly  ten  pounds  worth  a  head.  Yet  with  all  this  great 
and  wide  spread  distress  geuerall}^  exists  among  the  work- 
ing poor,  and  whole  classes  of  society  in  the  more  afSuent 
ranks  are  gradually  slipping  down  to  a  state  of  insolvency. 
That  is  the  prodigy  of  our  times;  that  it  is  of  which  it  most 
behooves  us  to  discover  the  cause;  that  it  is  of  which  the 
cause  is  to  a  large  portion  of  the  community  unknown. 


FINANCE   IN   WAR    AND   PEACE.  195 

"In  investio;ating  the  cause  of  this  extraordinary  state 
of  things,  one  fact  of  leading  importance  must,  at  the  very 
first  glance,  strike  every  observer-  It  is,  that  the  opulence 
which  has  flown  into  the  Nation  has  been  very  far,  indeed, 
from  being  equally  distributed;  and  that,  generally  speak- 
ing, the  landed  interests  have  been  as  much  impoverished 
during  that  time  as  the  commercial  has  been  enriched. 
There  are,  it  is  true,  colossal  fortunes  vested  in  land,  chiefly 
in  the  hands  of  the  aristocracy,  which  nothing  can  shake, 
and  which  have  only  become  the  greater  in  relation  to  the 
expense  of  living,  from  the  limitation  of  the  currency, 
which  has  proved  fatal  to  so  many  estates  of  inferior  mag- 
nitude, both  in  land  and  manufactures,  around  them.  From 
the  general  tendency  of  realized  commercial  wealth  also  to 
investment  in  its  purchase,  the  income  of  the  land  holders, 
taken  as  a  whole,  has  rather  increased  than  diminished  dur- 
ing this  period,  from  the  great  number  of  estates  which  ha/oe 
passed  out  of  the  hands  of  laboring  or  insolvent  old  families 
into  those  of  new  and  opulent  cominercial  purchasers.  But, 
notwithstanding  this,  notliing  is  more  certain  than  that  the 
landed  interests,  on  the  whole,  have  been  in  great  distress 
during  the  last  five-and-twenty  years;  and  that  for  a  con- 
siderable part  of  that  time  their  embarrassments  were 
absolutely  overwhelming. 

ENGLISH   FARMERS    PETITION    FOR   RELIEF. 

_  "From  1826  to  1835  the  table  of  the  House  of  Commons 
literally  groaned  under  the  loads  of  petitions  praying  for 
relief  to  agricultural  distress,  which  the  low  price  of  every 
species  of  rural  produce  in  the  four  last  of  these  years  too 
plainly  proved  were  well  foumded.  No  person  practically 
acquainted  with  the  condition  of  the  middle  or  lesser  landed 
proprietors  in  any  part  of  the  empire,  during  that  time,  can 
have  a  doubt  on  that  point.  Let  any  man  of  middle  3'ears 
examine  the  condition  of  the  landholders,  having  from 
500Z.  to  2000^.  per  year,  with  whom  he  began  life  thirty 
years  ago,  and  he  will  find  tliat  two-thirds  of  them  are 
practically  insolvent;  that  nearly  all  are  deeply  in  debt;  and 
that  probably  a  half  have  sold  their  estates  and  are  now 
dragging  out  the  last  year  of  a  useless  life   and   wasted 


196  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

fortunes  in  what  Dionysius,  of  Syracuse,  called  the  most 
unhappy  of  all  states — an  indigent  old  age.  The  embar- 
rassments of  the  landed  proprietors  are,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  few  magnates,  notorious  and  universal.  This  is 
decidedly  proved  by  the  prodigious  extent  to  which  com- 
mercial wealth  is  everywhere  bujdng  up  the  estates  of  the 
old  gentry  and  rooting  them  and  their  families  out  of  the 
land.  And,  what  is  very  remarkable,  this  state  of  things  is 
just  the  reverse  of  what  it  was  during  the  war.  Agricultural 
industry  was  then  not  only  amply,  „but  splendidly  remuner- 
ated; rents  were  constantly  rising;  the  farmer,  rapidly 
made  fortunes,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  the  whole  sub- 
sequent agricultural  progress  of  Great  Britain;  and  the 
purchase  of  land  with  borrowed  money  was  nearly  as  cer- 
tain a  mode  of  making  a  fortune  as  it  has  since  become  a 
losing  one. 

' '  The  next  remarkable  feature  in  the  social  state  of  Great 
Britain  for  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  has  been,  that  cap- 
ital has  daily  acquired  a  greater  advantage  over  industr}^, 
or  rather  large  capital  over  small.  This  may  be  regarded 
as  a  grand  characteristic  of  the  period,  and  which  in  its 
ultimate  effects  through  society,  has  produced  more  wide- 
spread and  durable  results  than  any  other.  Proofs  of  this 
occur  on  ever}'^  side;  they  lie  as  it  were,  on  the  surface  of 
things.  The  common  complaint,  that  there  is  no  getting 
on  now  without  capital,  and  that  mere  industry  and  good 
conduct  are  very  far  indeed  from  being  a  passport  to  suc- 
cess, if  unaccompanied  with  this  advantage,  is  a  proof  how 
strongly  it  is  felt  in  all  classes  of  the  community.  The 
colossal  fortunes  made  by  manufacturers  and  great  capital- 
ists, contrasted  with  the  innumerable  bankruptcies  of  lesser 
adventurers  in  the  same  perilous  path,  is  another  proof  of 
the  same  fact.  Every  person's  experience,  especially  in 
the  manufacturing  districts  and  commercial  towns,  must 
have  convinced  him  of  the  universality  of  this  tendency. 
The  common  complaint,  that  the  money  power  had  become 
all-powerful — that  its  sway  is  paramount  in  the  legislature 
—  and  that  it  is  able  to  set  all  the  other  interests  in  the 
community  at  defiance,  proves  how  generally  this  evil  is 
experienced  in  all  classes.  And  a  most  decisive  proof  of 
the  universal  sense  of  the  overwhelming,  and  often  des- 


FINANCE   IN   WAE   AND   PEACE-  197 

potic  influence  of  capital,  has  been  afforded  within  this 
period  by  the  simultaneous  springing  up,  and  astonishing 
multiplication  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  of  joint  stock 
companies.  (Incorporated  companies.)  These  associa- 
tions, comparatively  unknown  in  former  days,  when  iso- 
lated capital  could  make  its  way  in  the  world,  demonstrate 
the  sense  universally  entertained  of  the  inability  of  small 
or  moderate  fortunes,  standing  alone,  to  withstand  the 
competition  of  the  great  commercial  magnates.  Like  the 
defensive  associations  of  disorderly  or  dangerous  times, 
they  are  the  combination  of  the  weak  who  are  endangered, 
against  the  strong  who  threaten  danger.  But  from  this 
effort  at  self-defense  has  arisen  another  evil,  of  no  small 
magnitude,  and  which  may  come  in  process  of  time  to 
overthrow  the  equilibrium  of  society.  These  joint  stock 
companies  have  themselves  become  a  great  and  formidable 
interest  in  the  state;  their  sway  in  the  legislature  is  well 
known  to  be  superior  to  the  East  and  West  India  shipping, 
both  put  together.  Falling  as  they  generally  do  under  the 
entire  guidance  of  one  or  two  active  and  skillful  directors, 
they  have  in  effect  enormously  augmented  the  influence 
already  preponderating,  ®f  accumulated  capital;  they  often 
commit  practically,  almost  with  impunity  unbounded  in- 
roads upon  private  property.  The  obligation  of  giving 
compensation  to  property  injured  or  taken  is  often  ren- 
dered almost  illusory,  from  the  results  of  the  trials  to 
ascertain  its  value.  Defying  competition,  such  companies 
are  often  deaf  to  the  cries  of  justice.  Industrial,  as  the 
French  say,  has  come  in  place  of  territorial  feudality;  and 
probably  men  liave  already  discovered,  in  most  parts  of  the 
country,  that  a  joint  stock  railway  company,  with  its  patri- 
otic professions,  accumulated  capital,  legislatorial  attor- 
neys, skilled  eno-ineers,  scientilic  witnesses,  railway  stock- 
holding jurymen,  and  legions  of  Irish  laborers,  is  a  more 
formidable  neighbor  than  ever  was  feudal  baron  with  his 
mailed  men-at-arms,  stout  arcliers,  strong  castles,  and  open 
announcement  of  destruction  to  his  hereditary  enemies. 

"The  third  feature  of  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  which  is 
in  an  especial  manner  worthy  of  attention  is,  tliat  while  the 
growth  of  the  national  wealth,  as  a  wliule  has  been  unpre- 
cedented, and  of  its  population  equal!}'  so  in  an  old  state, 


198  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

neither  the  one  nor  the  other  have  advanced  in  a  propor- 
tional manner  over  the  whole  country.  Generally  speaking, 
the  city  population  has  immensely  increased,  and  the  rural 
by  no  means  in  the  same  proportion.  In  some  counties  the 
latter  appears,  from  the  late  census,  to  have  actually  de- 
clined; in  none,  excepting  the  manufacturing  districts,  has 
it  augmented  in  anything  like  the  proportion  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  cities.  This  is  matter  of  common  remark,  and 
generally  known,  but  few  are  aware  of  the  prodigious  ex- 
tent to  which  the  difference  is  gone.  Those  who  will  cast 
their  eyes  to  the  notes  will  see  few  examples  of  the  differ- 
ence in  the  progress  of  the  rwral  and  urban  population, 
which  will  probably  excite  general  surprise,  (The  Author 
here  gives  a  table  showing  the  increase  of  ten  cities  and  the 
decrease  of  ten  of  the  rural  district^  in  population.) 

"Nor  has  the  increase  of  opulence  in  cities  been  less  re- 
markable than  the  augmentation  in  number  of  their  in- 
habitants. The  daily  display  of  wealth  in  the  metropolis 
excites  the  astonishment  of  every  beholder.  It  is  not  go- 
ing too  far  to  say  that  it  is  double  of  what  it  was  at  the 
close  of  the  war.  Manchester,  Liverpool,  Birmingham, 
Glasgow,  Leeds,  Bristol,  Dundee,  Aberdeen  and  all  the 
trading  towns  of  the  empire,  have  advanced  in  a  similar 
proportion,  not  merely  in  the  opulence  of  a  few,  but  the 
evident  ease  and  well-being  of  a  considerable  proportion  of 
the  community.  It  is  impossible  to  see  the  streets  of  com- 
fortable houses  calculated  for  persons  of  a  moderate  in- 
come, and  the  miles  of  villas  beyond  them  for  those  more 
advanced  in  opulence,  without  becoming  sensible  that  pros- 
perity has  almost  everywhere  descended  far  into  society  in 
the  urban  population." 

"But  there  are  by  no  means  the  same  symptoms 
of  growing  prosperit}^  in  the  rural  disti'icts.  We  see, 
indeed,  cultivation  everywhere  extended,  and  the  most 
strenuous  efforts  frequently  made  to  drain  and  improve  the 
soil,  but  we  perceive  scarcely  any  traces  of  these  exertions 
leading  to  the  accumulations  of  fortunes  among  their 
authors,  to  which  they  are  so  well  entitled  It  is  painfully 
evident  that  these  efforts  are  made,  not  to  accumulate 
money  but  to  avert  ruin.     The  farmers  are   contented   if 


FINANCE   IN   WAK   AND   PEACE.  199 

they  can  live;  to  make  fortunes  has  become  so  rare  among 
them,  that  it  is  scarce  ever  thought  of. 

"  We  often  hear  of  shop-keepers  and  merchants  buying 
villas  in  the  country  to  enjoy  themselves  in  summer,  but 
we  never  hear  of  farmers  buying  houses  in  town  for  recre- 
ation in  winter.  They  do  not  even  acquire  small  properties 
in  the  countr3^  Wealth  is  evidently  not  accumulated  in 
the  hands  of  the  cultivators  of  the  soil.  If  they  can  pay 
their  rents  and  maintain  their  families  they  deem  them- 
selves fortunate.  The  middle  class  of  land-holders  even 
have  almost  ceased  to  frequent  towns  in  winter;  the  pre- 
text is,  that  they  are  going  abroad,  or  are  sending  their 
cliildren  to  the  continent  for  education.  The  real  fact, 
that  the}^  cannot  afford  living  in  towns  in  Great  Britain, 
and  they  are  fain  to  hide  their  straitened  circumstances 
under  the  obscurity  of  a  foreign  country.  The  affluence 
of  the  towns  is  astonishing;  but  those  at  present  engaged 
in  the  labors  of  agriculture,  or  in  the  receipts  of  its  rents 
add  but  little  to  it.  It  is  derived  from  manufacturing  or 
commercial  opulence,  from  professional  gains,  from  for- 
tunes brought  back  from  the  Colonies,  or  from  capital 
realized  from,  or  rendered  a  burden  on  land  in  former  or 
more  prosperous  times. 

"The  last  feature — and  it  is  a  most  distressing  one — of 
society  for  the  last  twenty-five  years  in  the  British  Islands, 
has  been  the  extraordinary  inequality  on  the  condition  of 
the  working  classes  themselves,  and  the  general  want  of 
those  habits  of  foresight  amongst  them  which  are  the  only 
lasting  foundation  of  durable  prosperity.  This  is  the 
more  distressing,  as  it  might  reasonably  have  been  expected 
to  have  arisen  with  the  advantages  many  of  them  have  en- 
joyed. It  is  a  great  mistake  to  say  the  working  classes  are 
all  permanently  miserable.  Many  of  them  doubtless  are 
so;  and  what  is  very  extraordinary,  certain  professions,  or 
trades,  are  generally  immersed  in  poverty,  while  others  in 
their  close  vicinity  are  often  rioting  in  affluence.  Wages 
differ  in  a  remarkable  and  most  distressing  degree  in  differ- 
ent places.  In  many  of  the  ajzricultural  districts  they  are 
as  low  as  seven  or  eight  shillings  a  week: — (An  English 
shilling  is  one-twentieth  of  a  ]iound,  or  about  twenty-four 
cents  in  American  money.) — The  piecers  and  female  work- 


200  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

ers  in  manufactories  seldom,  save  in  years  of  extraordinary 
prosperity,  earn  more  than  six  shillings.  Weavers  are 
generally  as  low  as  seven  shillings  a  week;  in  seasons  of  dis- 
tress they  sink  to  four  shillings  and  even  less.  On  the 
other  hand  the  cotton  spinners,  iron  moulders  and  other 
skilled  trades,  earn,  in  ordiuary  years,  from  20s  to  30s  a 
week;  but  the  affluence  of  some  professions  or  branches  of 
labor  affords  no  compensation  for  the  des^raded  and  un- 
happy state  of  others.  It  is  impossible  to  strike  an  average 
in  such  cases.  You  might  as  well  make  an  average  of  the 
happiness  of  some,  and  the  sorrows  of  others  in  private 
life.  Perhaps,  however,  those  of  the  laboring  classes  who 
are  in  health  and  employment  and  belong  to  trades  which 
are  in  a  state  of  prosperity  are  fully  as  well  off  as  they 
"were  during  any  former  period  of  our  history.  *  *  * 
"But  it  is  this  condition  of  the  poor  in  the  lowest  grade 
which  is  the  most  extraordinary  feature  in  the  last  twenty 
years,  and  which  has  now  assumed  such  a  magnitude  as  to 
have  become,  in  every  point  of  view,  a  national  concern. 
The  hand-loom  weavers  are  everywhere  at  the  starving 
point;  with  the  utmost  industry  they  can  never  earn  more 
than  seven  or  eight  shillings  a  week;  during  periods  of  com- 
mercial depression  it  sinks  to  four  or  five.  The  ease  with 
which  this  trade  can  be  learned,  its  adaptation  to  weak  or 
sickly  constitutions,  the  early  gain  made  by  young  persons, 
with  the  immense  temptations  of  a  poor  family  of  avoiding 
a  protracted  or  expensive  education  for  tlieir  children  by 
adopting  it,  is  the  cause  of  the  universal  lowness  of  wages 
in  this  branch  of  industry.  It  is  the  first  step  above  total 
destitution.  But  this  magnitude  and  condition  of  the  des- 
titute class  itself  is  the  alarming  thing.  In  every  great 
town  in  the  empire  there  is  a  mass,  about  the  twelfth  or 
fifteenth  of  its  number,  who  are  generally  in  a  state  of  al- 
most total  penury.  In  periods  of  commercial  distress  this 
destitute  rises  to  double,  sometimes  triple  its  average 
amount.  It  is  from  this  frightful  tribulation  of  poverty, 
intemperance,  vice  and  destitution  that  two-thirds  of  the 
physical  contagion  which  ravages  and  four-fifths  of  the  con- 
victed crime  which  burdens  society,  takes  its  rise.  The 
alarming  increase  of  offenses   which  penal  severity  and 


FINANCE   IN   WAR  AND   PEACE.  201 

lenity,   uncertainty  and  certainty  of    punishments,    have 
been  alike  unable  to  restrain,  mainly  comes  from  this  class. 

"Close  packed  in  the  center  and  worst  parts  of  every 
great  city — crowded  together,  many  families  in  the  same 
room — scarce  knowing  where  to  find  their  daily  food, — 
careless  because  destitute,  often  joyous  because  always  un- 
foreseeing,  this  deplorable  body  are  retained  within  the 
precincts  of  contagion  and  vice  by  the  iron  bonds  of  hope- 
less poverty.  It  is  impossible  that  regular  or  virtuous 
habits  can  be  acquired,  it  is  scarcely  that  those  of  intemp- 
erance and  wickedness  can  be  avoided,  in  their  dismal 
abodes.  If  we  penetrate  into  them  we  shall  find  that  they 
are  not  peopled  by  any  one  class  of  society,  but  by  the  un- 
fortunate, the  reckless,  and  profligate  from  every  class  ; 
and  that  the  great  majority,  even  of  the  criminals,  are 
rather  the  objects  of  pity  than  censure.  Widows  with 
large  families  form  the  most  numerous  portion  of  this  deso- 
late community;  destitute  old  men,  young  theives,  aban- 
doned drunkards,  licentious  prostitutes,  shameless  publicans, 
audacious  receivers  of  stolen  goods,  and  once  virtuous 
families,  brought  into  such  hideous  society,  by  being 
thrown  out  of  employment,  compose  the  remainder.  And 
all  this  exists  unnoticed,  unrelieved,  within  a  few  hundred 
yards  of  the  most  unbounded  opulence,  amidst  luxury  un- 
heard of,  prosperity  unexampled,  and  in  a  community 
making  a  more  rapid  progress  in  material  resources  than 
any  that  ever  yet  appeared  upon  earth. 

"For  a  long  period  after  the  conclusion  of  the  war  it  was 
said  that  the  public  distress,  which  was  so  generally  and 
poignantly  felt  by  all  the  industrious  classes,  was  owing  to 
the  transition  from  the  vast  national  expenditure  of  the  war 
to  the  comparatively  limited  expenditure  of  the  peace ;  and 
without  doubt  this  cause,  for  some  years  had  a  very 
powerful  influence.  But  it  has  long  ceased  to  have  any 
effect.  It  is  rather  too  late  to  speak  of  the  transition  from 
war  to  peace  prices,  when  we  are  in  the  thirtieth  year  of 
unbroken  European  peace ;  when  we  have  during  that  time 
twice  had,  in  1824^5  and  1835-0  a  perilous  plethora  of  exu- 
berant prosperity,  when  the  duplication  of  our  imports 
proved  a  corresponding  increase  in  the  means  of  purciias- 
ing  foreign  luxuries,  and  the  trippling  of  our  exports  has 


202  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

more  than  counter  balanced  the  diminished  purchases  or 
expenditure  on  the  part  of  government." 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  English  people  passed 
through  the  same  stages  of  controversy  which  have  charac- 
terized the  American  situation  during  the  past  twenty-five 
years,  British  resumption  was  preceded,  as  before  stated, 
with  the  demonetization  of  silver  and  the  limitation  of  its 
legal  tender  quality,  and  also  followed  by  an  immense  con- 
traction of  the  currency  which  amounted  to  nearly  one-half 
of  the  paper  in  circulation.  Distress  among  the  agricul- 
tural classes  and  among  all  branches  of  labor  ensued,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  and  Parliament  was  petitioned  by  every 
class  of  industry  for  relief. 

THE    TARIFF    DOGTOK. 

At  this  point  the  tariff  empiric  made  his  appearance  and 
the  people  were  told  that  public  distress  was  neither  caused 
by  a  contraction  of  the  currency  nor  by  a  deficiency  of  the 
circulating  medium,  but  was  caused  by  the  sudden  tran- 
sition from  war  to  peace  and  by  the  burdens  of  taxation. 
That  as  soon  as  the  nation  would  be  relieved  from  this  bur- 
den and  when  again  settled  into  its  accustomed  state  of 
tranquility,  things  would  go  on  as  before  and  all  classes  of 
society  would  be  prosperous. 

They  were  told  that  the  thing  which  afflicted  English 
industries  most  was  their  system  of  indirect  taxation — 
tariff  duties.  If  these  could  be  repealed  all  classes  would 
at  once  emerge  into  an  era  of  unparalleled  prosperity. 

The  farmers  were  skeptical,  however,  and  petitioned  for 
loans  from  the  Government  at  a  low  rate  of  interest — loans 
based  on  staple  agricultural  products  and  upon  land.  (See 
Kicardo's  Works,  p.  456.)  But  they  were  told  this  would 
never  do  as  it  would  lead  to  an  inflation  of  the  currency 
which  would    certainly  prove  detrimental  to  all  classes. 


FINANCE   IN   WAR   AND   PEACE.  203 

Diminished  burdens  was  the  remedy.  This  would  relieve 
them  of  their  distresses.  Nothino;  else  was  necessary. 
Constant  use  of  cathartics  and  total  abstinence  from  tonics 
was  the  sum  total  of  the  political  therapeutics  of  the  period. 
Ricardo  published  his  work  upon  political  economy; 
learned  speeches  were  made  in  Parliament;  reports  of  par- 
liamentary committees  filled  the  journals  of  both  houses; 
and  finally  the  concensus  of  opinion  approved  of  the  plan 
of  repealing  gradually  the  indirect  taxes  with  a  view  to 
reaching  ultimate  free  trade  and  to  secure  the  relief  so 
sorely  needed.  Accordingly  the  plan  was  entered  upon, 
and  between  1819  and  1815,  there  were  30,000,000^.  of 
indirect  taxes  repealed  and  England  reached  a  condition  of 
trade  which  is  characterized  by  the  economists  of  our  day 
as  being  practically  free  from  the  abomination  of  protective 
laws.  Has  British  labor  been  emancipated  in  consequence? 
In  spite  of  the  relief  which  came  to  labor  and  agriculture 
from  a  repeal  of  the  so-called  protective  duties,  the  condi- 
tion of  the  laboring  classes  of  Great  Britain  has  grown 
worse  from  year  to  year,  and  the  number  of  land-owners 
has  constantly  diminished.  The  reflective  mind  will  find 
in  this  ample  proof  that  labor  needs  something  more  than 
mere  relief  from  its  pack-saddle.  The  pittance  saved  by 
the  repeal  of  taxes  will  not  alone  afford  relief.  He  must 
have  rest,  food,  and  opportunity  for  intellectual  and 
moral  culture.  To  secure  these  essential  comforts  the 
income  from  his  toil  must  be  materially  increased.  With- 
out money  his  wants  can  only  be  appeased  at  the  hand  of 
charity.  If  his  money  has  been  filched  from  him  it  should 
be  restored.  If  withheld  it  should  be  granted  him  at  once. 
But  let  our  enlightened  historian,  Mr.  Alison,  point  out 
to  us  the  real  cause  of  distress  among  the  British  laboring 
people.  After  showing  that  the  repeal  of  tariff  duties  did 
not  relieve  them,  he  says: 


204:  -A.   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

"  Some  external  causes,  therefore,  must  have  paralyzed 
and  blio^hted  the  financial  resources  of  the  nation  in  the 
midst  of  such  unbounded  and  increasing  growth  of  the 
national  wealth  since  the  peace.  And  the  all-important 
question  arises — what  was  it  which  had  this  effect  ? 

"  The  answer  is:  it  was  the  Contraction  of  the  Currency, 
which  was  unnecessarily  made  to  accompany  the  resump- 
tion of  cash  payments  by  the  bill  of  1819,  which  has  been 
the  chief  cause  of  all  these  effects.         *        *        * 

''It  need  hardly  be  told  to  the  most  heedless  or  superfi- 
cial reader,  that  a  currency  is  required  to  carry  on  the 
transactions,  public  and  private,  of  men  in  their  intercourse 
of  exchange  with  each  other;  that  it  consists  in  general,  of 
the  precious  metals,  which  by  the  common  consent  of  men 
are  employed  and  have  been  so  from  the  earliest  period, 
for  that  purpose  on  account  of  their  being  at  once  rare, 
durable  and  portable;  and  that,  in  civilized  and  mercantile 
communities,  paper  notes,  of  some  sort  or  other,  have  been 
usually  resorted  to  in  modern  times  to  meet  the  wants  of 
commerce,  and  remove  the  evils  which  may  be  frequently 
felt  from  the  supply  of  the  precious  metals  being  less  than 
the  community  require. 

"It  follows,  as  a  necessary  consequence  from  this,  that 
when  the  commercial  transactions  of  a  nation  increase  the 
circulating  medium  should  increase  also-.  This  is  as  nec- 
essary a  step  as  that,  when  a  people  increase  the  subsis- 
tence by  which  they  are  to  be  maintained  should  be  aug- 
mented in  a  similar  proportion.  If  twenty  millions  of  men 
on  an  average  of  years  and  transactions,  require  forty  mil- 
lions of  circulating  medium  to  conduct  their  transactions, 
and  if  these  men  swell  to  thirty  millions,  they  will  require, 
other  things  being  equal,  sixty  millions  for  their  transac- 
tions. If  a  supply  proportioned  to  the  increase  of  men  and 
the  wants  of  their  commercial  intercourse  is  not  afforded 
the  circulating  medium  will  become  scarce,  it  will  rise  in 
price  from  that  scarcity,  and  become  accessible  only  to  the 
more  rich  and  affluent  classes.  The  industrious  poor,  or 
those  engaged  in  business,  but  possessed  of  small  capital, 
will  be  the  first  to  suffer:  they  will  find  it  impossible  to  get 
the  currency  necessary  to  carry  on  their  business,  and  will 
fail  in  consequence.     To  retain  the  circulating  medium  of  a 


FINANCE   IN   WAR   AND   PEACE.  205 

country  at  a  stationary  or  declining  amount,  when  its 
numbers  are  rapidly  increasing,  and  their  transactions  are 
daily  augmenting  in  number  and  importance,  is  the  same 
thing  as  it  would  be  to  affix  a  limit  to  the  issuing  of  rations 
to  an  army,  at  a  time  when  the  number  of  soldiers  it  con- 
tained was  constantly  augmenting;  or  to  reduce  the  quan- 
tity of  oil  used  in  a  machine  when  the  wheels  which  required 
its  application  were  always  on  the  increase.  The  inevita- 
ble result  would  be,  that  numbers  would  be  famished  in  the 
first  case,  and  the  weaker  parts  of  the  machine  impeded  by 
friction  in  the  second. 

"When  the  precious  metals,  either  over  the  whole  world, 
or  in  a  particular  state  become  more  abundant  than  form- 
erly, the  necessary  consequence  is,  that  they  become  less 
valuable  and^  consequently  decline  in  price.  But  as,  by 
the  custom  of  all  civilized  nations,  value  is  measured  by  a 
certain  amount  of  the  precious  metals,  either  coined  or  un- 
coined, received  or  capable  of  being  received,  for  them 
when  brought  in  to  market,  this  decline  in  value  in  the  cir- 
culating medium  is  rendered  apparent  by  a  rise  in  the 
money  price  of  all  other  articles.  For  example,  if  a  quar- 
ter of  wheat  is  worth,  or  will  buy,  at  a  certain  time,  in  a 
particular  country,  half  a  pound  weight  of  or  pure  silver, 
and  by  a  sudden  addition  to  the  productiveness  of  the 
mines,  which  supply  the  world  with. the  precious  metals, 
the  amount  in  circulation  is  doubled,  the  result  will  be,  that 
a  quarter  of  wheat  will  be  worth,  or  will  sell  for,  a  whole 
pound  of  pure  silver.  And,  e  converso^  if  the  supply  of 
precious  metals  is  again  contracted  to  its  former  amount 
by  a  failure  in  the  sources  frotn  which  they  are  obtained, 
or  an  extraordianry  absorption  or  hoarding  of  them  in  any 
particular  part  of  the  world,  so  that  the  currency  in  the 
country  is  restored  to  its  former  and  more  limited  amount, 
a  quarter  of  wkeat  will  again  come  to  be  worth,  or  to  be 
equal  in  value  in  exchange,  to  half  a  pound  of  pure  silver 
only.  All  this  is  the  necessary  result  of  the  principal  that 
commodities  are  valuable  and  bring  high  prices  when  they 
are  scarce,  and  decline  in  exchangeable  value  and  bring 
low  prices  while  they  are  abundant,  which  is  universally 
and  constantly  evinced  in  the  transactions  of  private  life." 


206  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

The  evils  which  followed  the  passage  of  the  resumption 
act  threw  British  society  into  confusion,  and  distrust  seized 
generally  upon  the  public  mind.  In  the  autumn  of  1817 
the  terrified  Government  induced  the  banks  to  raise  the 
circulation  to  something  near  the  amount  that  was  flow- 
ing in  the  channels  of  trade  prior  to  the  commencement  of 
contraction.  We  quote  from  an  English  work  written  and 
published  by  Jonathan  Duncan,  in  1857,  to  show  the  magi- 
cal effect  which  this  reissue  of  paper  had  on  the  commerce 
of  the  empire : 

"The  consequence  was  that  prices  again  rose  actually  to 
the  level  of  the  war,  and  general  prosperity  returned,  thus 
refuting  the  silly  idea  prevalent  among  many  classes  that  a 
state  of  hostilities  had  caused  the  rise,  the  truth  being  that 
it  was  wholly  due  to  the  emission  of  paper  money.  If  his- 
torical evidence  be  demanded  to  sustain  the  doctrine,  such 
evidence  is  at  hand.  During  the  American  war  ©f  inde- 
pendence, the  colonies  used  paper  money,  while  England 
retained  its  metal  money.  At  that  period  all  prices  ad- 
vanced in  America ;  in  England  no  advance  teok  place.  In 
the  war  against  revolutionary  and  imperial  France,  England 
adopted  paper  money  ;  France  maintained  its  metal  money. 
Land  and  all  products  advanced  in  England,  they  maintained 
an  equal  level  in  PVance,  after  the  supression  of  assig- 
nats  and  mandats.  Prices  did  not  advance  in  England  during 
the  American  war  of  independence,  nor  ic  France  during 
the  war  to  which  we  have  referred.  *  *  *  j^.  j^^g 
been  stated  that  the  prices  rose  in  1818  to  the  war  level,  and 
that  rise  has  been  referred  to  the  expansion  of  legal  tenders 
of  seven  millions  over  and  beyond  the  amount  of  circulation 
prior  to  the  autumn  of  1817.  It  was  shown  before  the 
agricultural  committee  of  1821  that,  in  1818,  wheat  was  84s 
and  Id  per  quarter  as  compared,  not  with  the  consumption 
of  the  war,  but  with  the  consumption  of  1818.  Taking 
the  large  towns  of  Liverpool,  Manchester,  Birmingham, 
Sheffield  and  Leeds,  not  only  bread,  but  meat,  fell  in  1819, 
1820  and  1821,  that  is  after  gold  payments  were  ordered  to 
be  resumed.    The  fall  in  meats  in  those  towns  proved  before 


FINANCE    IN   WAR   AND    PEACE.  207 

the  committee  to  have  been  fifteen  per  cent ;  and  proved 
by  the  most  decisive  evidence,  the  diminution  of  hides 
being  fifteen  per  cent.  If  any  one  superficially  considers 
that  a  fall  of  fifteen  per  cent  was  a  proof  of  cheapness, 
let  him  bear  in  mind  that  the  supply  of  animal  food  had 
declined  with  the  same  scale  of  percentage  ;  and  let  him 
further  take  notice  that  a  petition  from  Birmingham  to 
Parliament  in  1812,  stated  that  less  butcher's  meat  was  con- 
sumed as  butcher's  meat  fell.  Showing  such  a  decline  of 
wages  simultaneously  with  the  decline  of  food,  as  deprived 
the  working  classes  of  that  command  over  commodities 
which  they  had  enjoyed  in  1818,  when  the  supply  of  the 
legal  tender  was  ample. 

"The  year  1818  was  not  only  a  prosperous  year  for  agri- 
culture, but  a  prosperous  3'ear  for  commerce  and  shipping. 
In  reply  to  questions  asked  by  the  committee  on  foreign 
trade,  which  sat  in  1820,  Mr.  Tindall,  an  eminent  ship 
builder,  said,  that  in  1818,  the  value  of  ships  had  recovered 
from  depression;  and  that  there  was  enough  employment 
for  all  ships,  including  the  transports  discharsfed  after  the 
war,  of  good  freights."  Mr.  Tooke  stated,  "tn  1818  I  had 
very  great  difiiculty  indeed,  in  getting  the  requisite  quantity 
of  shipping."  But,  in  lsl9  and  1820,  that  is  after  Peel's 
bill  was  passed,  ships  were  again  too  numerous  for  com- 
merce; then  Mr.  Tooke  said,  "he  could  have  procured 
double  the  quantity  of  tonnage  he  desired."  Mr.  Maryatt, 
a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  a  most  extensive 
"West  India  merchant,  averred  in  a  speech  delivered  by  him 
in  Parliament  in  1820,  that  a  vessel  called  'The  Sesostris,' 
which  cost  in  1818,  £12,175,  was  sold  in  1820  for  £6,300. 
If  this  case  stood  alone,  it  would  be  insignificant  in  support 
of  the  present  argument;  but  Mr.  Mar3'att  declared  that  the 
rule  was  universal,  of  which  he  cited  numerous  instances. 
In  fact,  in  1818,  commerce,  manufactures  and  agriculture 
all  flourished.  The  following  statement  is  taken  from  the 
report  of  the  finance  committee  of  1819,  in  which  it  com- 
ments on  the  revenue  of  1818: 

"It  appears  that  the  total  revenue  of  Great  Britain  in  the 
year  1818,  exceeded  the  same  revenue  for  1817,  by  the  sum 
of  £1,705, .510;  and  that  the  total  revenue  of  Ireland  for 
1818  (when  money  was  plentiful)   exceeded   that  for  1817 


208  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

by  the  sum  or  £192,969,  making  a  total  improvement  of 
tne  revenue  of  the  United  Kingdom,  as  compared  with 
1817,  of  £1,898,479;  but  this  comparison  will  be  rendered 
still  more  correct,  and  the  result  will  be  more  favorable,  if 
the  sum  of  £2,230,531.  being  the  amount  of  unappropriated 
war  duties  received  in  1817,  be  deducted  from  the  income 
received  in  that  year;  and  if  the  sum  of  £566,639,  the 
amount  of  appropriated  war  duties  received  in  1818,  be  also 
deducted  from  the  total  revenue  received  in  1818.  It  will 
then  appear  that  an  improvement  to  the  amount  of  £3,662,- 
371  has  actually  taken  place  in  the  premanent  revenue  of 
the  United  Kingdom  in  1818,  as  compared  with   1817." 


THE   PKOMOTEES   OF  BRITISH   EESUMPTION   MISTAKEN  AS  TO  THE 
EFFECT   OF   THEIR   SCHEME    ON   PRICES. 

The  return  to  specie  payments  in  England  was  forced  by 
the  holders  of  bullion  who  were  doubtless  backed  and  sup- 
ported by  the  British  aristocracy  and  the  principal  share 
holders  in  the  Bank  of  England.  The  country  bankers,  the 
merchants  and  traders,  petitioned  Parliament  against  the 
passage  of  the  Peel  bill,  but  their  petitions  were  disre- 
garded. The  elder  Peel  in  presenting  a  petition  of  this 
character  made  the  following  statement  in  Parliament: — 

"In  looking  at  the  reports  which  have  been  published  on 
the  subject,  he  must  say  that  the  witnesses  (those  examined 
by  the  committee  having  the  Peel  bill  in  charge)  were  not 
men  likely  to  give  any  information  to  the  public,  not  men 
acquainted  with  the  state  of  the  country;  the  last  men  who 
should  have  been  questioned  if  the  government  wanted  to 
arrive  at  the  merits  of  the  case.  He  begged  to  state  his 
opinion,  that  the  petitioners  were  the  best  judges  of  such 
a  measure.  He  would  also  add,  that  though  they  were  in- 
timately connected  with  all  that  concerned  the  welfare  of 
the  country,  the  most  experienced  men,  and  the  best  quali- 
fied from  their  connection  with  our  manufacturers  and  com- 
merce, yet.they  had  not  heen  examined  hefore  the  committee.'^' 


FINANCE   IN   WAR   AND    PEACE.  20S 

"To  show  that  the  act  of  1819  was  passed  in  utter  ignor- 
ance of  its  character,  we  must  here  deviate  from  strict 
chronological  order,  to  what  transpired  in  1832,  when  Mr. 
Mathias  Atwood  was  examined  before  the  select  committee 
on  the  state  of  agriculture.  That  gentleman  was  asked, 
'Do  you  remember  what  was  stated  at  the  time  in  Parlia- 
ment on  that  subject — that  the  act  of  1819,  would  not  alter 
prices  more  than  four  or  five  per  cent,  at  the  utmost?' 

Mr.  Atwood  gave  this  answer: 

"  It  was  never  stated  that  the  abolition  of  the  silver 
standard  would  alter  prices  at  all.  It  was  stated,  with  ref- 
erence to  the  act  of  1819,  which  established  the  present 
standard,  that  this  would  alter  prices  to  the  extent  of  four 
or  perhaps  five  per  cent.  A  member  of  the  committee  of 
1819,  stated  in  his  place  in  the  House  of  Commons,  nine 
years  after  that  time,  that  he,  as  a  member  of  the  commit- 
tee, was  entirely  mislead  as  to  the  character  of  the  meas- 
ure which  was  founded  on  its  recommendation  and  report. 
He  stated  that,  in  his  belief,  every  member  of  that  com- 
mittee was  similarly  mislead;  he  addressed  himself  to  the 
chairman  to  ask  if  this  was  not  so;  he  stated  that  the  com- 
mittee, entirely  inexperienced  in  such  matters,  were  mis- 
lead by  witnesses  perfectly  uninformed,  who  talked  of  a 
fall  of  prices  of  four  or  five  per  cent,  when  it  was  since 
rendered  undeniable  that  a  fall  of  prices  had  been  pro- 
duced, and  an  alteration  in  the  valne  of  money,  not  of  four 
or  five  per*  cent,  but  of  twenty,  thirty,  or  forty  per  cent; 
that  if  the  character  of  that  measure,  the  act  of  1819,  had 
been  known  to  him  he  would  not  have  voted  for  such  a 
measure,  or  supported  it  in  the  House  or  in  the  committee, 
nor  did  he  believe  that  any  one  member  of  the  committee, 
knowing  the  character  of  the  measure,  would  have  sup- 
ported it,  or  that  the  chairman  of  the  committee  would 
have  done  so." 

"Mr.  Atwood  was  then  asked  if  Mr.  Robert  Peel  was 
not  the  chairman  alluded  to  ?  The  answer  was  '  Yes,  he 
was  present  and  made  no  answer  to  the  statement.'  It  was 
Mr.  Bankes  who  made  the  statement.  Another  member 
of  the  House  of.Commons,  Sir  James  Graham,  f)ut  a  ques- 
tion to  the  chairman  of  the  committee  (Mr.  Robert  Peel) 

U 


210  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

in  the  House  immediately  after  the  statement  of  Mr. 
Bankes,  whether  he  contradicted  that  statement,  and  he 
gave  no  contradiction. 

'"  We  return  to  the  year  1819.  Not  one  word  was  said 
in  debate  of  that  clause  in  the  suspension  act  which  pledged 
Parliament  to  restore  cash  payment  six  months  after  a 
definitive  treaty  of  peace.  It  was  felt  that  such  a  preten- 
•sion,  several  years  after  peace  had  been  signed,  was  ridic- 
ulous. The  reasoning  of  the  bullionists  was  of  a  very 
different  character.  As  their  spokesman  they  put  forward 
Mr.  Ricardo,  a  gentleman  largely  engaged  in  stock 
exchange  operations,  and  who  was  looked  up  to  as  an 
authority  on  trade  and  finance,  he  being  the  author  of  some 
able  works  on  political  economy.  He  gave  it  as  his  opin- 
ion that  the  return  to  cash  payments  would  only  lower 
prices  about  four  per  cent,  and  he  was  believed  as  an  oracle 
is  believed.  This  fall  was  so  trifling  that  all  effective 
opposition  ceased.  Mr.  Baring,  Mr.  Atwood,  and  Mr. 
Ellice  warned  th<i  House  that  the  fall  would  be  twenty-five 
and  probably  fifty  percent,  but  their  counsel  was  unheeded. 
But  it  must  be  stated  in  justice  to  Mr.  Hicardo,  that  he 
afterwards  had  the  magnanimity  to  confess  the  gravity  of 
his  error,  thus  favorably  contrasting  with  those  whom  a  false 
pride  or  some  motive  still  more  unworthy,  rendered  obstinate 
and  callous. 

"On  Mr.  "Western's  motion  in  1823,  Mr.  Ricardo  said  he 
had  computed  the  whole  rise  in  the  value  of  money  since 
Mr.  Peel's  act  at  ten  per  cent. ,  but  at  the  same  time  avowed , 
that  he  had  very  little  ground  for  forming  any  correct 
opinion  on  the  subject.  "By  comparing  money,"  he  said, 
"with  standard  value,  we  had  certain  means  of  judging  of 
its  depreciation,  but  he  knew  of  none  by  which  we  were 
able  to  ascertain  with  certainty  alterations  in  real  or  absolute 
value.       *      *      * 

"Mr.  Ricardo  lived  to  change  his  opinion  concerning  the 
effect  of  the  Peel  bill  and  shortly  before  he  died,  expressed 
that  he  had  done  so.  The  late  Sir  Wm.  Heygate  was  with 
him  when  he  said,  'Ah,  Heygate,  you  and  a  few  others 
who  oppo^d  us  on  cash  payments  have  proved  right.  I 
said  that  the  difference  at  most  would  only  be  five  per  cent., 
and  you  said  at  the  least  it  would  be  twenty-five  per  cent.' 


FINANCE   IN   WAK   AND   PEACE.  211 

"Thus  it  appears  that  the  act  of  1819,  was- condemned 
by  its  chief  promoter;  and  it  will  be  remembered  that  Mr. 
Bankes,  a  member  of  the  committee  which  had  recom- 
mended the  House  to  pass  it,  declared  it  was  passed  under  a 
complete  misapprehension  of  its  nature  and  consequences. 
These  facts  are  important;  they  refute  the  silly  assertion 
that  the  currency  question  is  settled,  and  furnish  the  strong- 
est argument  in  favor  of  a  serious  reconsideration  of  our 
whole  monetary  system. 

"Immediately  on  the  passing  of  the  bill  prices  began  to 
fall.  Those  persons  were  fortunate  who  obtained  seventy- 
five  pounds  for  what  had  previously  sold  for  one  hundred. 
Fronts  and  wages  rapidly  and  extensively  declined.  Riots 
broke  out  in  the  manufacturing  towns.  The  Luddites  at- 
tributed their  suffering  to  machinery,  and  destroyed  it  when 
they  were  able.  Large  meetings  were  held,  demanding 
Parliamentary  reform  as  the  proper  cure  for  the  evils  en- 
dured. To  aggravate  the  pressure,  and  add  fuel  to  the 
flames  of  discontent,  three  milHons  of  fresh  taxation  were 
imposed.  The  agricultural  laborers  now  emulated  the 
mechanics  of  the  towns,  burning  corn  stacks  and  hay  ricks, 
for  which  some  of  them  were  hanged.  The  harvest  of  1821 
and  1822  proved  abundant;  wheat  fell  to  43s  and  8d.,  and 
the  ruined  farmers  petitioned  for  agricultural  relief.  Gov- 
ernment, infatuated  with  bullion  errors  and  spurning  the 
idea  that  any  distress  could  arise  from  the  resumption  of 
cash  payments,  attributed  all  misery  of  which  the  farmers 
complained  to  the  extraordinary  productiveness  of  the 
crops  (overproduction).  Such  ignorance  and  impiety  are 
scarcely  credible,  but  the  fact  is  not  to  be  disputed,  as 
the  Parliamentary  debates  in  Hansard  attest;  nay  more,  the 
walls  of  Parliament  rang  with  approving  cheers  when  the 
doctrine  was  enunciated.  However,  the  ministerial  triumph 
was  short.  Not  only  were  the  English  laboring  classes 
unable  to  obtain  bread  in  the  midst  of  this  imaginary  over- 
production, but  quickl}''  news  arrived  that  there  was  a  famine 
in  Ireland.  Subscriptions  were  raised;  every  pulpit,  by 
royal  command,  was  put  into  requisition  to  solicit  alms, 
and  the  bubble  of  overproduction  burst."  (Jonathan  Dun- 
can, on  the  Currency,  101  to  112,  inclusive.) 


212  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

Havino^  acquainted  ourselves  with  the  practical  operati on 
and  ejffects  of  the  liberal  system  of  finance  adopted  by  Great 
Britain  during  the  protracted  struggle  for  the  overthrow  of 
Napoleon,  and  having  been  made  familiar  with  the  disas- 
trous and  merciless  consequence  which  followed  the  return 
of  the  mother  country  to  the  gold  basis  after  the  close  of 
that  struggle,  let  us  now  recall  our  own  experience  under 
like  circumstances  and  policy  of  legislation.  The  duplica- 
tion of  history  will  become  strikingly  apparent  as  we 
advance. 

AMERICA   FROM    1857   TO    1861. 

In  the  year  1857  the  people  of  the  United  States  were 
precipitated  into  financial  revulsion.  The  crisis  was  brought 
on  by  an  unhealth}- extension  of  all  forms  of  bank  and  com- 
mercial credit.  This  expansion  occurred  while  the  business 
of  the  country  was  on  a  specie  basis.  In  the  month  of 
October  of  that  year  the  banks  universally  suspended  cash 
payments,  and  the  importers  of  dutiable  merchandise  stored 
their  wares  without  payment  of  duty,  as  the  law  permit- 
ted them  to  do,  for  a  period  of  three  years.  The  founda- 
tion upon  which  the  business  of  the  country  rested  suddenly 
gave  way  and  of  course  the  whole  super-structure  tum- 
bled into  ruins.  The  people  were  deluged  with  debt  and 
stood  empty  handed  amid  the  wreckage  of  existing  disaster 
facing  an  impending  crisis  of  prodigious  magnitude 
which  was  destined  to  burst  upon  tkem  before  they  could 
possibly  have  time  to  rebuild  their  fortunes.  On  December 
22,  Congress,  following  the  recommendation  of  Secre- 
tary Cobb,  passed  an  act  authorizing  the  issue  of. $20,000,- 
000  of  interest-bearing  treasury  notes,  which  were  made 
receivable  in  payment  of  all  dues  to  the  United  States. 
This  enabled  the  Government  to  meet  current  expenses, 
but    relief     was    not    extensively    felt    in    the    ordinary 


FINANCE    IN   WAK   AND   PEACE-  213 

channels  of  trade  as  there  were  no  notes  issued  of  less 
denomiation  than  fifty  dollars.  Business  recuperated  at 
snail's  pace  and  the  crippled  fortunes  of  those  who  suffered 
disaster  dwindled  away  or  were  largely  consumed  by  costs 
incurred  in  legal  proceedings  brought  for  the  collection  of 
debt.  The  people  staggared  along  as  best  they  could  for  a 
couple  of  years  and  were  slowly  recovering  from  the  panic, 
when  they  were  suddenly  confronted  with  the  portentious 
political  contest  of  1860  which  ushered  in  the  protracted 
and  bloody  drama  that  followed. 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  was  inaugurated  he  found  an  empty 
Treasury,  and  it  soon  became  apparent  that  the  accumulated 
resources  of  the  country  were  wholly  inadequate  to  meet 
the  unprecedented  emergencies  of  the  situation. 

The  initial  epoch  in  the  struggle  of  Great  Britain  for  the 
overthrow  of  Napoleon  was  of  four  years  duration — from 
1793  to  1796,  inclusive — and  it  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a 
period  of  widespread  financial  depression.  It  is  a  remark- 
able fact  that  our  Government  was  scourged  and  chastened 
in  almost  exactly  the  same  way  for  a  like  period  of  four 
years  prior  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  rebellion.  Our 
financial  troubles  began  with  the  panic  of  1857  and  the 
early  months  of  1861  plunged  us  into  the  vortex  of  civil 
war. 

FROM   1861   TO  1865. 

Fort  Sumter  surrendered  April  14.  President  Lincoln 
immediately  called  for  seventy-five  thousand  men.  By 
June  most  of  the  Southern  States  had  seceded,  and  in  that 
month  General  Butler,  being  insufiiciently  supported,  was 
sorely  pressed  at  Big  Bethel.  The  disastrous  battle  of 
Bull  Run  followed  in  July  and  the  Union  forces  fell  back 
upon  Washington.  Within  two  days  a  call  was  issued  for 
a  half  million  volunteers  to  serve  for  three  years.     Con- 


214  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

gress  met  in  extra  session  July  4.  The  meagre  amount  of 
specie  in  the  country  soon  became  apparent  and  the  total 
inadequacy  of  our  circulating  media  was  plainly  seen  by 
all.  The  Secretary,  Mr.  Chase,  submitted  to  Congress  his 
plans  for  raising  funds,  which  consisted  of  a  resort  to  the 
issue  of  Treasury  notes.  By  the  acts  of  July  lY  and  August 
5,  1861,  the  Secretary  was  aathorized  to  issue  two  hundred 
and  forty  millions  of  twenty  year  Treasury  notes,  bearing 
not  to  exceed  seven  per  cent,  or  7  3-10  per  cent  Treasury 
notes,  and  he  was  also  authorized  to  issue  a  limited 
quantity  of  Demand  notes,  bearing  no  interest  but  receiv- 
able for  dues.  In  August,  1861,  Demand  notes  were  issued, 
the  total  amount  finally  aggregating  $60,000,000.  The 
New  York  banks  refused  to  receive  them  except  on  special 
deposit,  and  the  railroads  refused  them  in  payment  of  fares 
and  freight.  The  Secretary  and  subordinate  treasury  oflB- 
cials  signed  an  agreement  in  writing  to  receive  them  in 
payment  of  their  salaries !  General  Scott,  in  September, 
1861,  issued  a  general  order,  which  was  read  to  the  army, 
stating  that  "  The  Treasury  Department,  to  meet  future 
payments  to  the  troops,  is  about  to  supply,  besides  coin, 
Treasury  notes  in  five,  ten  and  twenty  dollars,  as  good  as 
gold." 

These  notes  were  made  a  legal  tender  by  the  act  approved 
March  17,  1862. 

Specie  payments  were  suspended  December  28,  1861,  and 
as  these  demand  notes  were  receivable  for  customs  duties  they 
speedily  rose  to  par  with  gold  and  there  remained,  sub- 
stantially, through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  the  war  until  they 
were  retired. 

Following  the  issue  of  Demand  notes  came  the  vast  issues 
of  Government  paper  of  various  kinds  and  descriptions. 
When  this  mine  of  wealth  and  power  was  opened  up,  the 
spirit  and  matchless  courage  of  the  army,  the  devotion  and 


FINANCE   IN   WAE   AND   PEACE.  215 

enthusiasm  of  the  people,  and  the  resolute  unfaltering  pur- 
pose of  the  administration  united  to  astonish  and  dazzle 
the  world  by  their  achievements.  As  the  sinews  of  wai 
were  supplied  agriculture  bounded  into  prosperity,  labor 
found  ample  employment  at  remunerative  wag'es,  mercan- 
tile pursuits  became  lucrative,  artisans  flourished  and  un- 
precedented prosperity  abounded  in  country,  village  and 
city — and  all  this  despite  the  terrible  strain  of  the  war. 
The  purse  of  Fortunatus  had  been  found.  A  vast  mine  of 
power,  a  great  store-house — filled  with  almost  limitless 
wealth,  had  been  opened  to  the  astonished  gaze  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  from  that  moment  the  strength  of  the  Republic 
became  irresistable.  The  area  of  cultivated  land  rapidly 
increased,  immense  lines  of  transportation  were  projected 
and  completed,  and  the  revenues,  which  were  so  meagre  at 
the  commencement  of  hostilities  as  to  render  the  Govern- 
ment an  object  of  contempt,  under  the  improved  systems 
of  taxation,  public  loans  and  the  enhanced  ability  of  the 
people  to  pay,  suddenly  became  ample  to  meet  the  unpre- 
cedented emergencies  and  demands  incident  to  that  gigantic 
struggle.  The  power  of  the  Government  and  the  strength 
of  its  finances  increased  as  the  war  advanced.  Each  suc- 
ceeding call  for  additional  troops  was  rapidly  filled,  and 
confidence  in  the  value  of  public  securities  increased  as  the 
calls  for  the  sinews  of  war  multiplied.  The  capitalists 
who  rejected  the  paltry  sixty  millions  of  Demand  notes  in 
1861,  were  eager  to  invest  in  the  almost  illimitable  issues 
of  1864-5.  The  Nation  had  been  lifted  out  of  the  narrow 
and  sordid  ruts  of  bigoted  economists  and  had  emerged  into 
the  broad  realm  which  recognized  the  omnipotence  of  the 
people. 

The  war  closed  in  a  blaze  of  glory  after  four  years  of 
bloody  sacrifice.  The  soldiers  of  the  victorious  army 
returned  to  their  sections  of  the  Union  and  were  amazed  to 


216  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

find  the  country  in  a  state  of  unexampled  prosperity. 
About  two  billions  of  dollars  of  various  kinds  of  money 
had  been  poured  into  the  channels  of  trade  resulting  in  a 
flood  tide  of  opulence  which  reached  to  every  village  and 
hamlet  in  the  North. 

Secretary  McCulloch,  in  his  report  to  Congress,  Decem- 
ber 4,  1865,  publicly  recognized  the  improved  condition  of 
the  country  and  said:  "The  country,  as  a  whole,  notwith- 
standing the  ravages  of  the  war,  and  the  draught  which  had 
been  made  upon  labor,  is,  by  its  greatly  developed  resources, 
far  in  advance  of  real  wealth  of  what  it  was  in  1857  when 
the  last  severe  financial  crisis  occurred.  The  people  are 
now  comparatively  free  from  debt."  *  *  *  * 
"There  is  an  immense  volume  of  paper  money  in  circula- 
tion." 

Speaking  of  the  advance  in  the  prices  of  those  articles 
•which  were  in  demand  by  the  Government,  the  secretary 
said: 

"  On  a  basis  of  paper  money,  for  which  there  is  no  out- 
let, all  articles  needed  for  immediate  use,  of  which  it 
became  the  measure  of  value,  felt  and  responded  to  the 
daily  increase  of  the  currency;  so  that  rents  and  the  prices 
of  most  articles  for  which  there  has  been  a  demand  have 
been,  with  slight  fluctuations,  constantly  advancing  from 
the  commencement  of  the  war,  and  are  higher  now,  with 
gold  at  forty-seven  per  cent  premium,  than  they  were  when 
it  was  one  hundred  and  eighty-five.  Even  those  which 
were  affected  by  the  fall  of  gold  upon  the  surrender  of  the 
confederate  armies,  or  by  the  increased  supply  or  dimin- 
ifhed  demand,  are  advancing  again  to  the  former  if  not 
higher  rates." 

The  Secretary  further  says: 

"It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  trade  is  carried  on  much  more 
largely  for  cash  than  was  ever  the  case  previous  to  1861, 
and  that  there  is  a  much  greater  proper  demand  for  money 
than  there  would  be  if  sales  were  made,  as  heretofore,  on 


FINANCE   IN    WAR   AND   PEACE.  217 

credit.  It  is  also  true  that  there  is  a  larojer  demand  than 
formerly  for  money  on  the  part  of  manufacturers  for  the 
payment  of  operatives." 

Both  white  slaves  and  black  had  been  emancipated  at 
one  and  the  same  time. 

THE   GRAVE   RESPONSIBILITY    OF   THE    SECRETARY. 

The  country,  under  the  encouragement  afforded  by  a 
sufficient  volume  of  non-exportable  domestic  currency,  well 
distributed,  had  grown  and  expanded  into  proportions 
which  were  but  feebly  comprehended  by  the  astute  head  of 
the  Treasury  department.  It  is  evident,  also,  that  both  he 
and  the  speculative  and  sinister  coterie  which  surrounded 
him,  were  either  unable  to  comprehend  the  great  econemic 
lessons  which  had  been  evolved  by  the  war,  or  they  were 
unwilling  to  accept  the  truth  which  had  been  thrust  upon 
them  by  th^  logic  of  events.  In  the  same  report  to  which 
we  have  already  alluded  the  Secretary  further  expressed 
himself  as  follows: 

"The  expansion  has  now  reached  such  a  point  as  to  be 
absolutely  oppressive  to  a  large  portion  of  the  people  while 
at  the  same  time  it  is  diminishing  labor,  and  is  becoming 
subversive  of  good  morals.  *  *  *  There  is  no 
fact  more  manifest  than  that  the  plethora  of  paper  money 
is  not  only  undermining  the  morals  of  the  people  by  encour- 
aging waste  and  extravagance,  but  is  striking  at  the  root  of 
our  national  prosperity  by  diminishing  labor.  *  *  * 
The  remedy,  and  the  only  remedy  within  the  control  of 
Congress  is,  in  the  opinion  of  the  secretary,  to  be  found  in 
the  reduction  of  the  currency." 

FROM  1866  TO  1875. 

Congress  responded  to  the  fervent  appeals  of  this  high 
official  and  passed  an  act  approved  April  12,  1866,  which 
authorized  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  at  his  discretion, 
to  receive  Treasury  notes  or  other  obligations  issued  under 


218  A'  CALL  TO  ACTION. 

any'^'t'of  Congress,  whether  bearing  interest  or  not,  in 
exchange  for  Government  bonds.  This  inaugurated  the 
policy  of  contraction,  set  the  cremation  furnace  ablaze  for 
the  cineration  of  our  currency,  and  started  the  vast  majority 
of  persons  possessed  of  limited  means  and  who  were  en- 
gaged in  legitimate  business,  across  lots  to  inevitable  bank- 
ruptcy. On  the  31st  day  of  August,  1865,  the  public  debt 
reached  its  maximum  and  amounted  to  $2,845,907,626.65. 
Of  this  only  $1,109,568,191  was  bonded  debt.  (See  Knox's 
work  on  U.  S.  Notes,  page  85.)  The  remainder  consisted 
of  treasury  notes  and  currency  obligations  of  various  kinds 
in  circulation  as  money.  By  June  30,  1869 — a  period  of 
three  years  and  ten  months,  the  bonded  debt  had  increased, 
under  the  currency  contraction  policy,  to  $2,166,568,920. 
(See  statement  of  the  bonded  debt,  at  various  peiiods, 
made  by  the  Comptroller,  in  his  report  of  1889,  page  35. ) 

In  other  words,  the  funded  debt  had  increased  over  one 
billion  dollars,  while  various  kinds  of  obligations  in  use 
among  the  people  as  currency  had  decreased  in  like  amount. 

This  tremendous  contraction,  coupled  with  the  fact  that 
more  than  ten  millions  of  people  residing  in  the  south  had, 
by  the  close  of  the  war,  been  suddenly  added  to  our  money 
using  population,  compelled  the  people  to  substitute  credit 
for  money.  They  ceased  to  pay  cash  and  plunged  into 
debt  wholly  oblivious  to  the  fact  that  the  money  kings  had 
decreed  a  universal  and  disastrous  fall  in  prices.  The  ten 
millions  of  people  in  the  South  were  now  competitors  for 
the  residue  of  currency  which  has  escaped  the  cremation 
furnace,  and  this  fact  alone  would  have  produced  a  strin- 
gency if  there  had  not  been  a  dollar  destroyed.  But  the 
vast  body  of  basiness  people,  being  entirely  ignorant  of 
what  was  going  on  at  the  Treasury  and  unadvised  both  as  to 
the  fact  of  contraction  and  the  effect  wliich  was  doomed  to 
follow,  plunged  ahead  as  though  nothing  had  happened, 


FINANCE   IN   WAR -AND    PEACE-  219 

confidently  expecting  money  to  be  as  plentiful  in  the  future 
as  it  had  been  in  the  past.  Disappointment  was  of  course 
inevitable ;  and  then  began  the  process  of  binding  burdens 
upon  the  shoulders  and  backs  of  the  people.  The  load 
was  carried  through  the  first  year  and  then  renewed  and 
increased.  At  the  end  of  the  second,  mortgage  security 
was  largely  called  for  and  prices  continued  to  fall;  but  the 
people  were  assured  that  their  sufi!erings  were  only  the 
result  of  the  over-production  and  transition  from  war  to 
peace.  Wages  began  to  decline,  manufacturers  and  the 
whole  range  of  industries  reduced  their  employes  to  the 
minimum,  extra  farm  hands  were  discharged,  domestic 
help  dispensed  with  and  incidental  expenses  curtailed 
throughout  the  entire  country.  But  nothing  could  avert 
the  impending  calamity.  The  people  staggered  along  as 
best  they  could  from  1867  to  18T3  and  then  fell  down 
beneath  the  weight  of  accumulated  burdens.  Crash  fol- 
lowed crash  until  it  seemed  doubtful  whether  there  were  any 
business  establishments  strong  enough  to  resist  the  current 
of  disaster.  Mercantile  and  bank  failures  became  so 
common  as  scarcely  to  attract  attention  and  despondency 
took  the  place  of  hope  and  activity.  Consumption  of  the 
necessities  of  life  diminished  in  proportion  as  the  ability  to 
purchase  was  taken  away.  Meantime,  as  if  to  mock  the 
short  sighted  and  viscious  economists  and  legislators  of  the 
period,  Providence  threw  annually  into  the  laps  of  the 
people  such  a  succession  of  bountiful  harvests  as  had  never 
before  been  known  since  man  began  to  cultivate  the  soil 
of  the  New  World.  And  yet,  nothwithstanding  it  all, 
hunger  stalked  the  streets  of  our  cities,  filled  our  manu- 
faeturing  districts  with  gloom,  and  the  lack  of  consumption 
at  the  centers  of  population  left  the  crops  to  rot  in  the 
fields,  mould  in  the  bins  or  to  be  exported  for  what  could 
be  obtained  on  an  over-supplied  European  market.     Manu- 


220  A   CALL  TO   ACTION. 

factures  were  sparingly  called  for  and  under-con  sumption 
became  the  forced  economy  of  every  household.  The 
army  of  the  unemployed  increased  as  the  bounties  of  nature 
multiplied,  until  every  highway,  every  village,  every  city 
was  thronged  with  tramps.  They  besieged  every  train  and 
sometimes  in  such  numbers  as  to  force  their  passage  from 
one  locality  to  another.  They  slept  upon  the  ground  and 
begged  for  work  and  bread  during  the  summer,  and  sued 
for  lodging  and  a  crust  in  the  lockups  and  prisons  in  the 
winter. 

But  those  who  inaugurated  the  malevolent  policy  which 
precipitated  these  results  were  unrelenting  and  pursued 
their  plan  with  cruel  persistency.  Like  military  chieftains 
who  sit  safely  in  the  rear  and  cooly  calculate  the  loss  of  life 
likely  to  take  place  in  a  contemplated  battle,  so  these  self- 
constituted  economists  had  counted  the  losses  and  cost 
likel}'^  to  follow  the  execution  of  their  schemes  and  hence 
were  not  disturbed  when  they  were  brought  face  to  face 
with  them.  Indeed  they  had  the  great  precedent  of  modern 
times  before  them  when  they  mapped  out  their  plans,  and 
knew  approximately  the  calamities  which  were  to  follow. 

THE   ANGLO-AMEEICAN    COMBINE. 

The  influence  of  British  wealth  and  British  institutions 
have  always  been  potential  in  financial  circles  in  the  United 
States.  The  confidential  relations  and  sympathies  which 
always  exist  between  great  financial  houses  and  fiscal  man- 
agers of  neighboring  nations,  tend  in  the  very  nature  of 
things  to  bring  about  mutual  understandings  and  accommo- 
dation of  ideas.  Such  persons  are  not  likely  to  be  deeply 
in  love  with  the  doctrine  of  human  equality  or  to  be  espe- 
cially interested  in  systems  of  political  economy  which  are 
designed  to  build  up  the  power  and  the  independence  of 
the  industrial  classes.     The  usurers  of  the  world  know  what 


FINANCE   IN   WAE   AND   PEACE.  221 

they  want  and  thej-  ask  for  it  without  hesitation.  At  the 
very  drst  session  of  Congress  under  the  Constitution  an  act 
was  passed  to  charter  a  United  States  bank  carefully  pat- 
terned after  the  bank  of  England — an  institution  which  has 
been  the  chief  solace  of  the  aristocracy  and  nobility  of 
that  realm  since  Patterson,  the  buccaneer,  and  Montague 
the  courtier  founded  and  fashioned  it  for  their  special  ben- 
efit. 

One  of  the  chief  reasons  urged  by  General  Jackson  for 
his  determined  fight  against  the  United  States  bank  was 
the  fact  that  British  and  other  foreign  capitalists  were  share- 
holders in  it,  and  hence  could  undermine  the  prosperity  of 
our  people  and  endanger  the  stability  of  the  Republic. 
The  old  hero  understood  that  a  Democratic  government 
had  no  use  for  an  aristocratic  or  monarchial  system  of 
finance.  He  knew  that  the  two  could  not  flourish  together. 
But  the  times  were  not  auspicious  for  the  British  system  of 
finance  in  Jackson's  day.  There  was  no  public  debt  upon 
which  it  could  be  founded.  The  last  obligation  was  called 
in  and  paid  during  his  admirable  administration,  and  a 
large  surplus  was  divided  among  the  States  and  thus 
returned  to  the  people. 

Extensive  and  intimate  Commercial  relations  between  the 
two  countries  as  well  as  the  social  and  business  courtesies 
constantly  exchanged  between  the  financial  magnates  of 
the  old  world  and  the  new,  served  to  impress  upon  the 
moneyed  men  of  this  country  the  superiority  and  excel- 
lence of  the  English  system;  and  all  that  was  needed  was 
an  opportunity  and  a  plausible  pretext  for  its  introduction 
into  our  fiscal  polity.  Both  were  furnished  by  the  late  civil 
war,  and  they  were  eagerly  improved.  The  promotors  of 
the  plot  not  only  secured  the  adoption  of  the  system,  but 
they  induced  the  Government  to  levy  tribute  upon  the 
people  to  furnish  the  means  necessary  to  its  establishment. 


222  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

They  monetized  the  credit  of  the  whole  people  and 
bestowed  it  gratuitously  upon  men  who  had  schemed 
throughout  that  perilous  struggle  to  embarrass  the  Treas- 
ury and  hence  to  discourage  our  arms. 

The  foundation  of  the  English  system  was  laid  in  this 
country  when  the  various  acts  were  passed  to  authorize  the 
issue  of  the  different  classes  of  war  bonds.  This  was  a 
tremendous  stride  towards  a  perpetual  j^ational  debt. 
Then  followed  in  train  the  exception  clause  in  the  Legal 
Tender  act,  the  law  authorizing  the  exchange  of  United 
States  notes  at  their  face  value  for  Five-twenty  bonds.  The 
whole  scheme  was  finally  consummated  by  the  passage  of 
the  National  Bank  acts  of  1863-4,  and  the  contempora- 
neous act  making  the  banks  the  fiscal  agents  and  deposi- 
tories of  Government  funds. 

Next  in  order  came  the  act  pledging  the  payment  of  all 
Government  obligations  in  coin.  In  due  time  (1873-4) 
came  the  acts  prohibiting  the  further  coinage  of  silver  dol- 
lars and  restricting  their  legal  tender  quality  to  sums  of  five 
dollars.  In  this  they  exceeded  the  British  act  of  1819 
from  which  the  American  law  was  copied.  The  English 
act  made  silver  a  legal  tender  for  forty  shillings,  about  ten 
dollars  in  United  States  money. 

The  battle  of  Waterloo  which  terminated  the  long  strug- 
gle for  the  overthrow  of  Napoleon,  took  place  in  June,  1815, 
and  within  a  brief  period  thereafter  preparations  began  for 
the  resumption  of  cash  payments.  Peel's  bill  for  this  pur- 
pose passed  in  1819,  but  preliminary  legislation,  such  as 
the  act  to  demonetize  silver  and  o+^^hers,  were  passed  prior  to 
that  date.  They  were  about  four  years  in  inaugurating  the 
cruel  and  relentless  policy.  A  like  period  was  occupied  in 
this  country.  Our  so-called  Resumption  Act  was  passed  in 
1875,  and  it  provided  for  resumption  of  cash  payments 
January  1,    1879.     The  result  in  England  is  graphically 


FINANCE   IN    WAR   AND   PEACE.  223 

described  by  Sir  Archibald  Alison,  in  the  quotations  above 
given.  The  reader  will  note  how  completely  the  afflictions 
following  resumption  in  this  country  correspond  with  the 
dire  calamities  which  befell  Great  Britain  under  like  fatal 
contraction. 

When  the  financial  crisis  of  1873  was  precipitated  upon 
this  country,  who,  as  a  general  rule,  were  first  to  suffer? 
It  was  the  industrious  poor  and  those  engaged  in  business 
with  small  capital.  The  first  were  cast  adrift  without  labor 
and  the  latter  driven  into  helpless  bankruptc}^  The  gloom 
of  dispair  settled  over  whole  communities  of  laboring  peo- 
ple and  labor  centers  became  the  centers  of  want  and 
destitution. 

The  next  disheartening  manifestation  was  among  the  til- 
lers of  the  soil.  The  price  of  agricultural  products  fell  far 
below  remunerative  prices,  and  with  but  short  exceptional 
periods,  the  same  discouraging  situation  has  continued  un- 
til the  present  day.  The  great  majority  of  those  who  were 
in  debt  when  the  panic  came,  have  been  unable  to  extricate 
themselves.  They  lost  their  homes  and  were  driven  into 
the  towns  and  cities  to  find  a  pracarious  subsistence  in  lo- 
calities already  congested  and  overcrowded.  Gradually, 
those  possessed  of  large  capital  which  had  been  doubled  by 
the  fall  in  prices,  began  to  loan  their  money  at  high  rates 
of  interest,  taking  agricultural  lands  for  security.  This 
seemed  to  promise  relief  to  this  important  branch  of  in- 
dustry, and  as  the  distress  was  universal,  the  borrowing  be- 
came general.  It  reached  every  community  in  every  state. 
But  the  prices  of  all  kinds  of  farm  produce  continued  to 
rule  so  low  that  it  was  soon  ascertained  that  after  taxes  and 
a  bare  living  were  deducted  from  the  income  of  the  farm, 
there  was  barely  enough,  and  in  thousands  of  instances, 
not  enough  left  to  pay  the  interest  due  on  the  mortgage. 
It  was  found  that  in  every  instance  where  the  farm  was 


224  A    CAIX    TO    ACTION. 

mortgaged,  there  were  two  families  to  be  supported  from 
its  products — that  of  the  mortgagor  and  that  of  the  mort- 
gagee, and  the  latter's  family  had  to  be  supplied  first.  New 
England  had  become  to  the  agricultural  West  and  South  a 
veritable  Old  England.  Our  wealth  was  drained  into  her 
coffers  as  certainly  as  that  of  Ireland  was  drained  into  the 
pockets  of  the  landed  aristocracy  of  Great  Britain. 

Population  continued  to  increase  and  money  became 
proportionately  scarce.  The  song  of  over-production  was 
sung,  the  convenient  theory  that  our  distresses  were  caused 
by  the  sudden  transition  from  war  to  peace  was  urged  from 
every  stump  and  filled  the  pages  of  every  magazene,  Execu- 
tive message,  and  financial  report,  but  still  the  blight  and 
mildew  remained. 

The  next  noteworthy  manifestation  of  the  abnormal  con- 
dition of  our  economy  was  the  rapid  multification  of  incor- 
porated companies.  Finding  money  scarce  and  hard  to 
get,  combinations,  incorporated  and  clothed  with  special 
privileges,  not  enjoyed  by  individuals,  were  formed  to 
crush  out  personal  enterprise  and  control  ti-ade.  These  have 
multiplied  by  tens  of  thousands  in  every  state  and  territory 
in  the  CTnion.  Thus  rivalry  sprang  up  between  corporations 
and  the  warfare  gave  rise  to  the  trust,  which  is  an  asso- 
ciation of  corporations  formed  to  limit  production  and  arbi- 
trarily fix  prices.  This  form  of  association  controls  almost 
every  branch  of  manufactured  products  and  casts  its  bale- 
ful power  into  every  community.  It  has  grown  so  strong 
as  to  defy  the  Government  and  proudly  challenge  organ- 
ized labor  to  open  combat. 

These  were  exactly  the  phenomena  which  accompanied 
contraction  and  specie  resumption  in  England.  The 
depression  among  the  agricultural  classes  there  produced 
great  distress  and  the  farmers  organized  and  petitioned  for 
Government  loans.     But  they  were  hampered   by  ballot 


FINANCE   IN   WAR   AND   PEACE-  225 

restriction  and  could  not  make  their  petitions  effective. 
And  now  the  same  old  tariff'  quack  is  abroad  in  the  United 
States.  He  is  prescribing  the  same  medicine  for  the  Amer- 
ican patient.  Take,  he  says,  the  same  treatment  that  was 
prescribed  for  England  under  like  conditions  and  all  will 
be  well. 

Such  is  the  story,  briefly  and  imperfectly  told,  of  the 
lamentable  situation  among  our  industrial  people.  The 
picture  falls  far  short  of  an  adequate  representation  of  our 
alarming  condition.  But  the  testimony  of  the  two  wit- 
nesses, England  and  America,  covering  the  whole  page  of 
the  century,  cannot  be  disregarded.  If  properly  studied 
and  honestly  applied,  the  two  great  examples  will  trans- 
form the  political  economy  of  the  world.  We  respectfully 
commend  it  to  the  thoughtful  consideration  of  all  who  hon- 
estly long  for  the  perpetuity  of  Republican  institutions. 


15 


CHAPTKR    VI. 


EVOLUTION    IN    CRIME    OR    IMPROVED    METHODS    OF 

PIRACY. 

The  elements  of  character  which  go  to  make  up  the 
highwayman,  are:  physical  courasfe,  disregard  of  moral 
obligations,  aversion  to  labor,  a  high  estimate  of  the  value 
of  money,  a  low  estimate  of  the  value  of  human  life,  stolid 
indifference  to  human  suffering,  and  defiant  disregard  of 
the  law.  This  type  of  person  takes  his  life  in  his  hand, 
lives  on  a  war  footing  with  society  and  looks  upon  Govern- 
ment simply  as  an  organized  police  force  and  as  his  nat- 
ural enemy.  His  only  restraint  is  fear,  and  even  this 
enhances  his  cruelty.  Such  characters  infested  human 
society  at  very  early  periods,  becoming  more  numerous  as 
society  itself  became  lawless  and  anon  diminishing  as  soon 
as  tranquility  returned  and  justice  was  rigidly  administered 
among  men.  When  such  characters  become  numerous  and 
confederate  in  large  numbers  they  are  called  brigands. 
Italy  has  had  eighteen  hundred  years  of  such  lawlessness. 
It  has  become  hereditary  and  comes  down  to  the  present 
day  bearing  its  lesson  of  warning  from  the  demoralized 
condition  of  society  which  existed  prior  to  the  fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire. 

Doubtless  the  love  of  money — avarice — is  the  supreme, 
all-swaying  passion  of  the  highwayman.  It  is  but  natural 
that  he  should  be  universally  feared,  detested,  and  dealt 
with  without  mercy.     Eobin  Hood,  the   famous  English 


EVOLUTION   IN    CRIME.  227 

outlaw  and  his  accomplices,  of  tlie  thirteenth  century;  Rob 
Roy,  the  Scotch  robber  of  the  seventeenth  century,  who,  in 
order  to  avenge  the  loss  of  his  lands,  led  the  life  of  a 
marauder  for  many  years;  Fra  Diavolo,  the  noted  brigand 
of  Italy,  and  Jesse  James  of  our  own  period,  though  dif- 
fering greatly  in  character,  are  among  the  noted  robbers  of 
the  world.  Some  of  them  occasionally  exhibited  humane 
traits  of  character.  For  example,  it  is  said  Robin  Hood 
never  robbed  women  nor  the  poor,  but  often  bestowed 
upon  the  latter  that  which  he  took  from  the  rich.  Robin 
was  given  to  traveling  in  cog.  When  he  got  into  trouble  a 
single  blast  from  his  bugle  would  summon  his  faithful  sup- 
porters who  were  always  loitering  within  hearing  distance. 
His  name  and  prowess  are  embalmed  in  "Ivanhoe"  by 
Sir  Walter  Scott.  The  lamented  and  heroic  General  Gor- 
don, who  perished  in  the  massacre  of  Kartoum,  found  dis- 
tinct traces  of  conscience  and  integrity  in  Zebehr,  the 
blood-thirsty  scourge  and  slave  driver  of  Central  Africa. 
Tippu  Tib,  another  human  tiger  of  the  same  country  and 
type,  says  the  slave  trade  is  certainly  wrong,  but  if  he  were 
to  quit  the  business  worse  men  would  take  his  place.  Tra- 
ditions of  an  occasional  noble  deed  or  sentiment  may  be 
found  clinging  to  the  biography  of  nearly  all  the  great  pro- 
fessional robbers  of  the  world.  Outraged  nature  seems  to 
have  made  an  effort  to  hide  the  nakedness  of  their  crimes. 
The  historj  of  piracy,  armed  robbery  upon  the  seas, 
which  are  regarded  as  the  common  highways  of  nations, 
also  brings  to  light  some  strange  contradictions  in  human 
nature.  Piracy  was  an  organized  industry  in  some  parts 
of  the  world  and  ravaged  commerce  upon  the  high  seas  for 
more  than  two  thousand  years.  It  was  esteemed  an  hon- 
orable calling  in  the  days  of  Homer,  at  least  YOO  years  B. 
C.  The  code  of  Solon  regulated  piracy  which  had  grown 
to  be  inveterate  amonjr  the  Phoceans  before  this  wise  man 


228  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

of  Greece  became  a  law  giver.  Hallam  says  that  in  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  of  the  Christian  era,  a 
rich  vessel  was  never  secure  from  attack  and  that  neither 
restitution  nor  punishment  could  be  obtained  from  the  gov- 
ernments. In  fact  many  of  the  leading  commercial  spirits 
and  naviojators  of  those  centuries  were  openly  engaged  in 
piratical  enterprises.  In  the  history  of  the  United  Nether- 
lands, Motley  gives  a  graphic  account  of  piracy  at  the 
close  of  the  sixteenth  century  on  the  English,  French  and 
Dutch  coasts.  This  scourge  did  not  abate  until  the  feudal 
system  was  destroyed  and  respect  for  human  rights 
restored;  a  striking  illustration  of  that  truth,  ever  upper- 
most in  human  history,  that  if  a  Government  expects  its 
subjects  to  be  peaceful  and  law  abiding  it  must  first  compel 
the  wealthy  and  the  powerful  to  refrain  from  depredating 
upon  the  weak  and  destitute.  In  no  age  of  the  world  have 
the  rights  of  either  person  or  property  been  secure  where 
the  laws  were  so  framed  or  administered  as  to  permit  idle- 
ness to  plunder  industry.  Men  will  impatiently  submit  as 
long  as  there  is  hope  of  redress,  but  expiring  hope  always 
lights  up  her  departure  with  the  torch  of  revolution. 

But  marauders  like  Hood  and  Fra  Diavolo  are  now  rarely 
to  be  found  among  civilized  nations.  Public  enlightenment 
and  thorough  police  regulation  have  about  banished  the  old 
fashioned  lawless  robber  from  the  land  and  driven  the 
pirate  from  the  seas.  The  perils  of  these  callings  grew  to 
be  greater  than  the  rewards  aud  so  they  perished.  But 
avarice,  that  fatal  malady  of  human  nature  out  of  which 
these  lawless  pursuits  sprang  and  which  prompted  men  of 
high  social  and  business  qualities  to  equip  wliole  flotillas 
for  such  service,  has  by  no  means  disappeared.  The  pirates 
have  abandoned  the  sea,  it  is  true,  and  the  race  of  lawless 
marauders  degenerated  for  the  most  part  into  the  sneak 
thief  and  the  pick-pocket,  yet  the  decadence  of  this  branch 


EVOLUTION   IN   CRIME.     "  229 

of  depraved  human  endeavor  has  been  apparent  and  super- 
ficial rather  than  substantial  and  real.  We  shall  endeavor 
to  vividly  assemble  in  this  chapter,  a  group  of  cognate  his- 
torical events  which  are  of  the  very  highest  possible  im- 
portance to  the  student  of  existing  human  institutions.  The 
laws  of  heredity  do  not  stop  with  man's  physical  being. 
They  extend  to  his  mental  and  moral  nature  as  well.  More 
still,  they  pervade  the  whole  framework  of  society,  from  the 
structure  of  Governmentjto  the  minute  details  of  business 
life.  The  philanthropist  beholds  the  mangled  and  fallen 
condition  of  human  affairs  and  is  often  perplexed  at  the 
perversity  of  some  giant  wrong  which  he  finds  tormenting 
the  world  as  it  holds  it  within  its  relentless  grasp.  He 
comprehends  the  evil,  but  its  origin  is  a  mystery  hidden 
from  his  view  and  the  tenacity  with  which  its  victims  cling 
to  the  scourge,  renders  the  whole  situation  intensely  bewild- 
ering. These  perplexities  generally  spring  from  a  super- 
ficial understanding  of  the  hereditary  influences  which  enter 
into  our  social  and  political  life.  A  proper  view  of  the 
disordered  condition  of  modern  society  can  only  be  obtained 
by  moving  out  upon  long  lines  of  investigation.  We  must 
discover  the  source  of  the  stream  which  is  poisoning  the 
whole  valley  through  which  it  runs.  When  the  head-waters 
are  carefully  explored  the  stream  which  flows  from  them 
will  cease  to  be  mysterious,  and  we  can  then,  if  at  all,  guard 
against  its  death-dealing  malaria.  Let  us  endeavor  to 
briefly  point  out  the  exact  period  when  the  modern  world 
became  inoculated  with  the  virus  which  is  now  threatening 
the  destruction  of  free  government  and  even  civilization 
itself. 

About  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  piracy,  always 
extremely  hazardous,  became  so  beset  with  peril  that  crews 
could  not,  except  in  rare  instances,  be  found  who  were  will- 
ing to  stand  the  hazard  of  tlie  die.     Following  the  example 


230  A    CALL   TO   ACTION. 

of  the  Hanseatic  League  of  Germany,  all  the  great  nations 
engaged  in  ocean  trade  had  united  in  driving  these  bloody 
rovers  from  the  pathways  of  commerce.  The  buccaneer- 
ing carried  on  by  the  French  and  English  against  the 
Spaniards  in  America  in  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  was  an  exceptional  episode  and  did  not  long  re- 
main to  vex  the  commerce  of  the  world.  But  when  piracy 
received  its  fatal  blow  at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
it  was  immediately  succeeded  at  the  opening  of  the  seven- 
teenth by  a  still  greater  scourge,  the  corporation —  a  pir- 
ate in  fact.  Piracy  and  brigandage  were  lawless,  but  the 
corporation  sprang  into  existence  bearing  a  commission 
from  the  State,  its  creator,  which  authorized  it  to  rob  legally 
both  by  sea  and  by  land.  Incorporated  trade  societies  in 
Britain  owe  their  origin  to  royal  charters  and  Acts  of  Parlia- 
ment, but  they  tormented  Rome  long  before  the  fall  of  the 
Empire.  The  first  great  corporation  for  pecuniary  profit — 
the  parent  trade  monoply  of  modern  history,  was 

THE  ENGLISH   EAST   INDIA   COMPANY, 

chartered  by  Queen  Elizabeth  at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  (1600.)  Its  accursed  progeny  have  scourged 
the  world  for  three  centuries.  The  offspring  of  this  mon- 
strous progenitor  extend  to  all  climes  and  control  to-day 
the  machinery  of  every  civilized  nation  on  earth. 

For  a  considerable  period  prior  to  the  opening  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  the  Dutch,  greatly  to  the  discomfiture 
of  London  commercial  interests,  had  almost  the  exclusive 
control  of  the  East  India  trade.  Finally  in  the  year  1599, 
they  advanced  the  price  of  pepper  to  about  double  the 
previous  rating  for  that  article.  The  merchants  of  London 
held  a  meeting  at  Founders  Hall  on  September  22,  with  the 
Lord  Mayor  in  the  chair.  This  meeting  resolved  to  form 
an  association  for  trading  directly  with  India.     The  leading 


EVOLUTION   IN  "CRIME.  2S1 

spirits  of  this  enterprise  doubtless  carefully  matured  their 
plans  after  close  consultation  with  Elizabeth  and  her  min- 
isters. This  appears  from  the  fact  that  an  envoy  was  at 
once  dispatched  to  apply  to  the  Great  Muojhal  for  privi- 
leges for  the  English  company.  The  objects  had  in  view 
were  doubtless  territorial  and  commercial  conquest,  as  the 
subsequent  history  of  this  enterprise  abundantly  proves. 
History  also  establishes  the  melancholy  fact  that  neither 
the  Crown  nor  the  incorporators  were  particular  as  to  the 
means  to  be  made  use  of  to  accomplish  these  ends.  On 
the  31st  of  December,  1600,  the  company  was  incorpo- 
rated by  the  Queen's  royal  charter  under  the  title  of  "The 
Governor  and  Company  of  Merchants  of  London  trading 
to  the  East  Indies."  There  were  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  share-holders  with  a  capital  of  £70,000.  Twelve  years 
later  on  the  capital  was  increased  to  £i00,000.  For  thirty- 
five  years,  this  powerful  corporation,  enjoying  the  royal 
favor  and  backed  by  the  royal  navy,  had  undisputed  con- 
trol, free  of  all  interference  by  English  rivals.  Finally  the 
"Assada  Merchants,"  an  independent  company  doing  busi- 
ness in  Madagascar  and  which  had  grown  to  be  powerful, 
began  to  give  them  trouble.  After  a  protracted  struggle 
the  Madagascar  enterprise  pooled  its  interests  with  the 
East  India  Company.  In  1655,  Cromwell  chartered  the 
"Company  of  Merchant  Adv^enturers"  to  trade  with  India, 
but  it  united  with  the  original  company  two  years  later. 
Cromwell,  who  was  a  great  hater  of  monopolies,  was 
endeavoring  to  restore  competition  and  thus  protect  the 
people  of  the  Commonwealth  from  the  extortion  of  the  old 
Elizabethan  octopus.  But  the  leading  spirits  in  the  new 
enterprise  simply  wanted  to  be  admitted  to  the  ground 
floor  in  the  old  company  and  secured  their  charter  solely 
for  that  purpose.  After  the  absorption  of  this  rival  com- 
pany no  competition  of  consequence  was  encountered  for 


232  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

a  period  of  forty-one  years.  This  long  lapse  of  the  unob- 
structed exercise  of  the  great  privileges  of  the  company  led 
to  the  accumulation  of  immense  wealth  for  the  stockholders. 
Near  the  close  of  this  period  of  repose  there  arose  in  Brit- 
ish public  life  a  very  brilliant  and  versatile  character  by 
the  name  of  Charles  Moiitague.  He  entered  Parliament 
from  Maiden,  was  possessed  of  brill/ant  oratory,  extraordi- 
nary logical  powers  and  great  financial  ability.  He 
rapidly  rose  to  eminence,  became  one  of  the  Commis- 
sioners of  the  Treasury,  was  called  to  the  Privy  Council, 
made  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  under  William  and 
Mary,  and  finally  entered  the  House  of  Lords  with  the 
title  of  Lord  Halifax. 

Through  the  influence  of  Montague  while  a  member  of 
the  Commons  1698,  Parliament  incorporated  a  new  com- 
pany to  be  known  as  the  "General  Society  Trading  to  the 
East  Indias,"  with  a  capital  of  two  millions  sterling.  It 
seems  from  contemporaneous  history  that  the  new  charter 
was  secured  by  a  majority  of  ten  votes  on  account  of  the 
absence  of  so  many  of  the  friends  of  the  old  company  to 
witness  a  fight  between  a  tiger  and  a  kennel  of  dogs.  But 
the  two  companies  soon  amalgamated  through  the  interces- 
sion of  Godolphin,  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury.  At  the 
same  time  the  amalgamated  company  advanced  a  loan  to 
the  royal  treasury  £3,190,000  at  three  per  cent,  in  consider- 
ation of  the  exclusive  privilege  to  trade  to  all  places  be- 
tween the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  the  Straits  of  Magellan. 
Montague  was  triumphant  and  the  amalgamation  of  his  new 
company  with  the  old,  destroyed  the  last  great  rival  to  the 
famous  East  India  Company.  We  shall  now  lose  sight  of 
Montague  for  a  little  while,  but  he  will  appear  again  in  a 
new  role  further  along  in  this  chapter. 

From  1600  to  1612  the  company  made  twelve  voyages. 
With  the  exception  of  the  fourth,   they  were  imfhensely 


EVOLUTION   IN   CKIME.  233 

profitable — rarely  ever  falling  below  100  per  cent.  The 
price  of  pepper  was  lost  sight  of  and  the  people  of  India 
and  of  England  were  in  turn  equally  despoiled. 

The  history  of  this  company  is  one  of  unparalleled  cru- 
elty, pillage  and  conquest.  It  equipped  fleets,  patrolled 
the  seas  with  the  British  navy,  made  war,  conquered  prov- 
inces, subdued  islands  and  finally  established  firmly  the 
dominion  of  Great  Britain  over  the  helpless  people  and 
territory  of  India.  To  protect  the  properties  and  privileges 
of  the  East  India  Company  Britain  has  waged  war  by  land 
and  by  sea  and  shed  the  blood  and  spent  the  treasure  of 
her  people.  Finally,  in  1689,  the  company  concluded  to 
consolidate  their  position  on  thQ  basis  of  territorial  sover- 
eignty, in  order  to  acquire  the  status  of  an  independent 
power  as  against  the  native  authorities  in  East  India.  This 
was  a  cruel  master  stroke.  It  already  enjoyed  the  protec- 
tion and  sanction  of  the  home  govtirnment.  This  new 
move  gave  them  the  protection  of  another  at  the  extreme 
limits  of  their  voyages  in  the  far  off  East.  The  commerce 
of  the  world  was  now  at  their  feet.  The  cupidity  of  all 
the  surrounding  nations  was  wrought  up  to  the  highest 
pitch.  France,  Denmark,  Austria,  Sweden,  each  chartered 
companies  to  trade  to  the  East  Indias.  Enterprising  and 
unscrupulous  men  throughout  the  United  Kingdom  busied 
themselves  in  concocting  schemes  similar  in  character, 
great  and  small.  Both  sea  and  land  were  ransacked  to  find 
foothold  for  corporate  adventure.  A  number  of  private 
traders,  not  being  able  to  secure  an  interest  in  the  East  In- 
dia Company,  fitted  out  expeditions  of  their  own.  James 
I.  licensed  Sir  Edward  Michelborne  to  trade  with  China, 
Japan  and  Corea.  He  openly  plundered  the  Indian  archi- 
pellago  and  carried  home  with  him  heavy  booty  which  he 
secured  by  the  boldest  piratical  methods.  The  rage  for 
organizing   corporations — joint   stock   companies   as   they 


234  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

were  generally  called — became  epidemic  and  spread  far 
and  wide.  They  extended  to  the  trading  in  wine,  coal, 
salt,  starch,  dressed  meats,  beavers,  belting,  bonelace, 
leather,  pins  and  indeed  to  nearly  all  of  the  necessaries 
of  life.  In  a  speech  in  the  long  Parliament,  Sir  John  Cul- 
pepper said  of  them:  "They  are  a  nest  of  wasps — a  swarm 
of  vermin  which  have  overcrept  the  land.  Like  the  frogs 
of  Egypt,  they  have  gotten  possession  of  our  dwellings, 
and  we  have  scarce  a  room  free  from  them.  They  sup  at 
our  cup;  they  dip  in  our  dish;  they  sit  by  our  fire.  We 
find  them  in  the  dye-fat,  washbowl  and  powder  tub.  They 
share  with  the  butler  in  his  box.  They  will  not  bait  us  a 
pin.  We  may  not  buy  our  clothes  without  their  brokage. 
These  are  leeches  that  have  sucked  the  Commonwealth  so 
hard  that  it  is  almost  hectical."  Patterson's  Isthmus  of 
Darien  hazard,  organized  in  Scotland,  was  an  outgrowth  of 
the  general  fever  and  thirst  for  monopoly  at  this  time. 
John  Law's  Mississippi  scheme  chartered  in  the  early  part 
of  the  seventeenth  century  by  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  then 
Regent  of  France,  and  which  granted  to  Law  the  control  of 
commerce  and  the  sovereign  power  over  a  great  ira,rt  of 
North  America,  was  fashioned  after  the  East  India  model. 
A  widespread  hallucination  for  corporate  adventure  and 
monopolistic  plunder  pervaded  all  Europe  at  this  period. 
The  imagination  and  avarice  of  all  who  were  speculatively 
inclined  were  fed  by  the  booty  brought  home  by  the  annual 
voyages  of  the  East  India  Company,  and  this  feeling  was 
inflamed  by  the  connivance  and  patronage  of  the  Crown. 
In  1719,  a  Statute  was  enacted  called  the  "Bubble  Act,"  to 
suppress  all  unincorporated  companies.  The  corporation 
had  become  all  in  all.  This  Statute  was  repealed  in  1826. 
In  the  year  1670,  Charles  II.  granted  a  charter  to  Prince 
Rupert,  and  seventeen  other  noblemen  and  gentlemen, 
incorporating  them  as  the  "Governor  and  Company  of 


EVOLUTION   IN   CKIME.  235 

Adventurers  of  England  Trading  into  Hudson's  Bay.'' 
This  was  the  beginning  of  the  celebrated  enterprise  known 
as  the 

HUDSON  BAT   COMPANY. 

The  charter  secured  to  them  "the  sole  trade,  and  com- 
merce of  all  those  seas,  straits,  bays,  rivers,  lakes,  creeks, 
and  sounds  in  whatever  latitude  they  shall  be,  that  lie 
within  the  entrance  of  the  straits  commonly  called  Hud- 
son's Straits,  together  with  all  the  lands  and  territories 
upon  the  country's  coasts  and  confines  of  the  seas,  bays, 
etc.,  aforesaid."  They  were  also  given  complete  lordship 
of  the  entire  legislative,  executive  and  judicial  power 
within  these  vague  limits,  and  they  were  also  granted  the 
right  to  control  the  entire  commerce  to  and  from  this  vast 
area.  The  company  constructed  forts,  founded  colonies 
and  organized  local  governments.  France  sent  rival  trad- 
ers into  the  same  territory.  After  a  long  struggle  the  two 
sets  of  adventurers  amalgamated,  following  the  example  of 
the  rival  East  India  Companies.  This  company  amassed 
immense  fortunes,  incited  Indian  wars,  murdered  the  In- 
dians and  corrupted  them  with  intoxicating  liquors.  The 
company  is  still  in  existence  and  wields  immense  power 
within  the  British  possessions  just  North  of  us.  Its  tri- 
umphs stretching  through  more  than  two  hundred  years 
strikingly  illustrate  the  astonishing  vitality  of  corporations 
and  the  vast  advantage  which  they  possess  over  ordinary 
mortals  in  all  classes  of  transactions.  The  career  of  these 
two  great  companies — the  East  India  aud  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Companies — portray  by  deep  lines  of  cruel  etching 
the  diabolic  character  and  capabilities  of  the  modern  cor- 
poration,— of  that  type  and  class  of  artificial  beings  cre- 
ated by  the  State  and  endowed  with  greed  unrestrained  by 
the  feelings  of  pity.     They  seem  to  gather  in  all  the  bad 


236  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

elements  in  fallen  human  nature  and  to  utterly  exclude 
every  redeeming  emotion  of  the  soul.  The  brigand  and 
the  pirate  are  human  and  pass  from  the  cradle  to  manhood 
through  the  evolutions  of  Child  life.  Traces  of  the  Divine 
and  of  a  mother's  influence  remain  with  them  to  the  last. 
But  the  corporation  has  no  mother.  It  springs  into  being 
without  heart,  without  emotion,  with  a  full  set  of  teeth, 
panting  with  the  passion  for  plunder  and  directed  by  mature 
judgment  from  the  hour  of  its  creation  to  the  end  of  its 
self-appointed  career.  How  can  flesh  and  blood  cope  with 
such  an  antagonist?  The  East  India  Company  was  brought 
into  being,  granted  lawful  immortality  by  the  rescript  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  who  died  three  years  thereafter.  She  was 
succeeded  by  James  I.,  son  of  Mary  Stuart  whom  Elizabeth 
had  cruelly  beheaded.  Succeeding  James  came  Charles  L, 
who  in  turn  lost  his  head,  as  his  grandmother  Mary  had  be- 
fore him.  And  so  through  all  the  ensuing  centuries  fraught 
with  war  and  carnage — through  the  rise  and  fall  of  dynas- 
ties, kingdoms,  powers  and  potentates,  this  company  lived 
on,  waxed  powerful,  rose  serene  above  death  and  the  decay 
of  empires,  and  finally  laid  its  powerful  and  polluted  hand 
upon  the  nations  and  people  whom  it  had  plundered  and 
crushed  them  with  its  grasp  of  iron. 

The  next  great  step  towards  the  enslavement  and  degra- 
dation of  modern  civilization  through  the  agency  of  cor- 
porations, was  taken  in  the  year  1694,  when  Charles  Mon- 
tague, whose  name  has  already  been  mentioned  in  this 
chapter,  after  consultation  with  King  William  and  his  min- 
isters, introduced  the  bill  to  incorporate 

THE   BANK  OF   ENGLAND. 

This  bill  became  a  law  in  the  month  of  May,  1694,  The 
following  July,  the  charter  was  issued  to  the  society  styled 
"The  Governor  and  Company  of  the  Bank  of  England." 


EVOLUTION   IN   CRIME.  2S7 

It  was  granted  in  consideration  of  a  loan  £1,200,000  to  the 
Government.     The  charter  was  to   expire  at  the  end  of 
eleven  years  upon  the  pa3^ment  of  the  loan  with  accrued 
interest.     The  Government  agreed  to  pay  eight  per  cent, 
interest  on  the  loan  and  £4,000  per  annum  as  the  expense 
of  management— in  all  £100,000  per  year.     This  loan  has 
never  been  paid.     The  charter  has  been  eleven  times  re- 
newed, each  in  consideration  of  a  fresh  loan  to  the  royal 
treasury,  and  in  fact  the  corporation  may  be  regarded  as 
existing  in  perpetuity.     It  has  grown  to  be  a  part,  and  in- 
deed a  very  important  part  of  the  Government  itself.     In 
truth,  if  the  bank  were  destroyed  the  Government  would 
have  to  be  reconstructed.     It  has  grown  to  be  the  most 
powerful  moneyed  institution  on  the  globe.     It  has  shaped 
the  financial  institutions  of  all  modern  civilized  nations  and 
dictates  the  fiscal  policy  of  Christendom.     By  their  decrees 
in  ''general  court,"  the  Governor  and  directors  of  this  insti- 
tution can  lay  toll  upon  every  nation  on  earth  which  is  with- 
out an  independent  system  of  domestic  finance.     The  rav- 
ages  of  piracy  in  its  palmiest  days   were  mere  passing 
trifles — harmless  eruptions  upon  the  surface  of  national  life 
— compared  with  the  scourge  of  general  spoliation,  bank- 
ruptcy and  business  death  which  this  Goliath  among  fiscal 
institutions  can  inflict  and  repeatedly  has  inflicted  upon  the 
commerce  of  the  world.     When  the  financial  institutions 
of  neighboring  nations  are  in  harmony  with  the  British 
system,   the  Bank  of    England  might  be  considered  the 
heart.     If  its  pulsations  are  regular  and  normal  life  and 
activity  exist  everywhere.     But  if  the  heart  stand  still,  par- 
alysis and  death  are  liable  to  ensue  to  the  utmost  extremi- 
ties of  business  life.     This  bank  controls  the  life  blood  of 
civilization,  and  by  its  decrees  it  can  speed  the  vital  fluid 
to  the  farthest  extremities  of  trade.     It  can  look  on  the 
scene  until  the  vivification  which  it  has  caused  has  filled  the 


238  A  CALL  TO  ACTION. 

earth  with  gladness  and  then,  at  the  whim  of  its  directors, 
it  can  change  its  discounts  and  ordain  business  confusion, 
and  even  bankruptcy,  from  the  rivers  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth.  "When  men  of  energy  and  industry  throughout  the 
kingdom  fashion  new  enterprises  and,  prometheus  like, 
call  for  fire  to  warm  and  to  give  them  life,  this  modern 
Jupiter  can  scourge  them  with  evils  and  decree  that  the 
world  shall  be  bound  in  punishment  and  the  vultures  be 
permitted  to  gnaw  unrestrained  at  its  vitals.  This  bank 
was  the  complement  of  the  East  India  and  Hudson's  Bay 
Companies,  and  much  of  its  original  capital  came  from  the 
increment  of  those  enterprises.  It  reinforced  both  of  these 
adventures  and  furnished  them  with  the  facilities  for  con- 
quest and  the  sinews  of  war.  The  reader  will  observe  the 
suggestive  similiarity  in  the  denomination  of  the  three  com- 
panies: "The  Governor  and  Company,"  etc.,  being  used 
in  each  instance. 

Montague  had  charge  of  the  bill  to  incorporate  this  bank 
while  it  was  pending  in  Parliament,  but  the  real  authorship 
of  the  measure  is  due  to  one  William  Patterson,  an  adven- 
turous but  talented  Scotchman,  in  whom  were  blended 
some  strange  contradictions  of  character.  This  man  fled 
from  Scotland  on  a«count  of  religious  persecutions  when 
but  seventeen  years  of  age.  He  passed  through  England 
on  foot  with  a  peddlar's  pack,  located  at  Bristol  for  a  short 
period  and  then  sailed  for  America.  His  sojourn  was 
mostly  spent  however,  in  the  Bahamas,  where  his  occupa- 
tion alternated  between  imparting  spiritual  advice  to  Brit- 
ish settlers  and  buccaneering — between  preaching  and 
piracy.  Patterson  was  the  author  of  the  Montague  Bill. 
Upon  the  incorporation  of  the  bank  he  became  one  of  its 
original  directors  for  a  short  time,  while  Montague  was 
made  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury.  Patterson  held  his  posi- 
tion but  a  single  year.     Montague  was  superceded  after  a 


EVOLUTION   IN   CKIME.  239 

brief  period,  was  accused  of  peculation  in  small  exchequer 
bills,  was  twice  impeached  and  in  each  instance  acquitted, 
probably  through  the  influence  of  accomplices  in  high 
places.  The  name  of  Charles  Montague  will  be  forever 
associated  with  three  of  the  great  commercial  and  political 
factors  of  modern  times — the  East  India  Company,  which 
has  spawned  its  voracious  progeny  over  all  Christendom;  the 
Bank  of  England,  which  was  its  off-shoot  and  complement, 
and  the  British  national  debt  upon  which  the  bank  is 
founded  and  which  now  exists  in  perpetuity  to  curse 
mankind.  The  bank  and  the  debt  were  contemporaneous 
in  origin;  and  the  Sovereign  power  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Great  Britain  to  issue  its  own  money  and  to  control  the 
volume  thereof,  was  parted  with  in  consideration  of  the 
trifling  loan  heretofore  mentioned.  The  bank  attends  to 
all  the  fiscal  business  of  the  Government.  Says  Adam 
Smith:  "  She  acts  not  only  as  an  ordinary  bank,  but  as  a 
great  engine  of  state.  She  receives  and  pays  the  greater 
part  of  the  annuities  which  are  due  to  the  creditors  of  the 
public,  she  circulates  exchequer  bills,  and  she  advances  to 
the  Government  the  annual  amount  of  the  land  and  malt 
taxes,  which  are  frequently  not  paid  till  some  years  there- 
after." 

The  bankers  are  largely  represented  on  both  sides  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  just  as  they  are  on  both  sides  of 
the  House  of  Eepresentatives  in  this  country.  Each  guards 
the  welfare  of  the  bank  as  he  would  the  apple  of  his  eye. 

For  a  period  of  one  hundred  and  eighteen  years,  from 
1708  to  1826,  this  institution  enjoyed  a  complete  monopoly. 
The  act  of  1708  provided  that  it  should  not  be  lawful  for 
any  body  politic,  erected  or  to  be  erected,  other  than  the 
said  "Governor  and  Company  of  the  Bank  of  England, 
or  of  any  other  persons  whatsoever,  united  or  to  be  united 
in  covenants  of  partnership,  exceeding  the  number  of  six 


240  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

persons,  in  that  part  of  Great  Britain  called  En_;^land,  to 
borrow,  owe,  or  take  up  any  sum  or  sums  of  money  on  their 
bills  or  notes  payable  on  demand  or  in  any  less  time 
than  six  months  from  the  borrowing  thereof."  Finally 
Parliament,  in  1826,  permitted  country  banks  of  issue  to 
be  established  anywhere  beyond  sixty-five  miles  of  Lon- 
don, but  the  issuing  of  notes  of  less  than  five  pounds  in 
England  and  Wales  was  at  the  same  time  prohibited. 
Attempt  was  made  to  extend  this  restriction  to  Scotland 
and  Ireland,  but  Sir  Walter  Scott,  and  his  coadjutors, 
aroused  sufiicient  public  sentiment  to  defeat  it.  The  power 
of  the  great  bank  renders  the  country  banks  merely  tribu- 
tary to  its  own  business.  Still,  greater  privileges  for  coun- 
try banking  were  granted  by  the  act  of  1858  and  later 
acts;  but  the  overshadowing  influence  of  the  Bank  of  Eng- 
land still  abides  and  waxes  stronger  from  year  to  year. 
The  capital  of  the  bank  amounts  to  i314,553,000.  By  the 
act  of  1844,  it  is  authorized  to  issue  not  to  exceed  £15,- 
000,000  in  notes  in  the  denomination  of  five  pounds  and 
upwards.  Since  the  renewal  of  the  charter  in  1833,  the 
notes  of  the  bank  have  been  a  legal  tender.  They  are 
redeemable  in  gold  on  demand,  and  notes  iu  excess  of 
£15,000,000  cannot  be  issued  except  in  exchange  for  their 
face  vlaue  in  gold  coin  or  bullion  deposited  with  the  bank. 
This  makes  the  British  people  the  slaves  of  chance  and  the 
servants  of  the  owners  of  bullion  and  so  restricts  the  circu- 
lating medium  as  to  remove  general  prosperity  among  the 
laboring  millions  beyond  the  limits  of  hope. 

The  volume  of  currency  is  entirely  dependent  upon  the 
influx  and  efflux  of  bullion.  When  coin  becomes  scarce 
common  sense  would  dictate  that  some  substitute  should  be 
issued  to  take  its  place.  But  the  practice  is  just  the  reverse. 
When  the  coin  takes  its  flight  the  paper  must  be  retired 
also.     This  makes  the  very  few  masters  of  the  empire  and 


EVOLUTION   IN    CKIME.  241 

they  stand  with  their  feet  upon  the  neck  of  prostrate  labor 
unmoved  by  the  feelings  of  pity  or  remorse.  Since  the 
bank  was  attacked  by  a  mob  during  the  riots  of  June,  1780, 
a  considerable  military  force  has  occupied  the  bank  every 
night  in  order  to  guard  against  any  emergency  which  may 
occur. 

There  are  a  number  of  branches  of  the  bank  in  various 
parts  of  the  kingdom.  Neither  the  parent  nor  the  branch 
banks  pay  interest  on  deposits.  For  a  period  of  more  than 
eighty  years  the  dividends  on  the  bank  stock  have  but  once 
or  twice  fallen  below  eight  per  cent  and  will  average  about 
that  figure;  and  this  is  a  country  where  money  is  only 
worth  three  per  cent  and  where  the  average  increase  in  the 
wealth  is  doubtless  below  that  figure.  The  stock  of  the 
bank  and  all  profits  arising  from  its  transactions  are  "ex- 
empt from  any  rates,  taxes,  assessments,  or  imposition 
whatsoever." 

The  Bank  of  Scotland  organized  and  chartered  by 
authority  of  the  Scotch  Parliament  in  1695,  was  modeled 
after  the  Bank  of  England.  Its  career  has  been  much 
more  restricted  but  vastly  more  humane  than  that  of  its 
English  neighbor. 

We  have  thus  noted  somewhat  in  detail  the  rise  and 
growth  of  the  three  gigantic  corporations  of  Great  Britain, 
The  East  India  Company,  The  Hudson's  Bay  Company 
and  the  Bank  of  England,  and  have  noted  cursorily  the 
swarm  of  smaller  corporate  parasites  which  immediately 
sprang  from  them  and  have  been  voraciously  feeding  upon 
the  life  of  British  industry  since  the  close  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  whole  brood  rose  upon  the  ruins  of  piracy 
and  the  rapacious  spirit  has  been  transmitted  to  the  entire 
progeny  and  has  ever  been  uppermost  from  the  beginning 
until  now.  The  pirate  and  the  brigand  carried  no  creden- 
tials except  their  blood-stained  weapons  and  quailed  only 
16 


242  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

before  superior  force.  The  corporation  plunders  under  the 
authority  of  a  charter  and  the  protection  of  the  State.  It 
occupies  the  whole  field  formerly  held  by  the  brigand  and 
the  pirate,  is  their  lineal  descendant  and  unites  within  itself 
the  characteristics  of  both  ancestors.  In  our  chapters  on 
war  and  peace  finances  we  shall  show  the  extraordinary 
growth  of  corporate  power  and  influence  under  Sir  Robert 
Peel's  Act  of  1819  to  resume  specie  payments  in  1823.  We 
now  invite  the  reader  to  an  examination  of  the  growth  of 

THE    SCOUKGE   WITHIN   THE    UNITED    STATES. 

The  framers  of  our  Constitution  and  those  who  influenced 
early  legislation  in  this  country,  had  been  educated  under 
the  influence  of  British  institutions.  They  had  long  been 
familiar  with  the  accepted  dogma  that  the  power  to  create 
corporations  was  a  prerogative  of  the  crown.  The  transi- 
tion was  easy  to  that  cognate  fiction,  that  the  power  to  cre- 
ate incorporated  trade  associations  was  a  prerogative 
inherent  in  Government,  without  a  regard  to  whether  it  was 
a  monarchy  or  a  republic.  An  error  more  fatal  and  unac- 
countable never  enslaved  the  minds  of  a  free  people.  It  is 
as  unphilosophic  as  it  is  vicious  in  consequences. 

An  incorporated  trade  association  does  not  result  from 
the  operation  of  any  law  of  nature  nor  from  the  exercise 
of  any  of  the  natural  powers  belonging  to  humanity.  No 
number  of  men,  in  the  absence  of  statutory  authority,  can 
confer  upon  themselves  the  powers  and  immunities  of  a 
corporation.  They  may  associate  in  business  as  partners, 
but  the  death  of  one  of  the  members,  in  the  natural  order 
of  things,  works  a  dissolution  of  the  association.  Each 
member  of  the  firm  is  personally  responsible,  where  com- 
pany property  cannot  be  found,  for  all  the  debts  of  the  co- 
partnership. If  then  it  be  true  that  a  corporation  does  not 
spring  from  any  law  of  nature  and  cannot,  in  the  absence 


EVOLUTION    IN    CRIME.  243 

of  statute,  be  brought  into  being  by  agreement  among  in- 
dividuals, whence  is  the  boasted  prerogative  of  the  Crown 
or  of  the  legislature  to  create  a  corporation  derived  ?  How 
can  man  confer  upon  the  legislature  a  power,  not  even  the 
germ  of  which  exists  within  himself  ?  By  nature  he  has 
the  right  to  trade,  to  associate  and  to  organize  Civil  govern- 
ment; but  he  can  never,  in  business  affairs,  span  the  chasm 
of  death,  escape  individual  responsibility,  nor  confer  upon 
the  legislature  a  power  which  he  does  not  himself  possess. 
The  corporation  then,  exists  beyond  the  domain  of  nature, 
is  in  conflict  with  the  limitations  of  human  life,  and  is  a 
remnant  of  usurpation  and  kingcraft  which  lingers  in 
modern  society  to  make  war  upon  the  individual  and  to  eat 
up  his  substance.  It  exists  by  bold,  daring  usurpation  and 
not  of  right. 

The  Government  of  the  United  States  is  one  of  enumerated 
powers.  The  Constitution  does  not  even  vaguely  hint  at 
the  power  of  Congress  to  incorporate  a  trade  association, 
or  to  grant  a  charter  for  such  purpose.  Driven  from  the 
field  of  expressed  power,  how  can  the  authority  of  Congress 
be  implied,  when  the  individuals  from  whom  the  Govern- 
ment was  derived  have  no  such  power  to  surrender  and 
make  no  pretense  even  of  doing  so  ?  The  Declaration  of 
Independence  declares  that  governments  derive  their  "just 
powers"  from  the  consent  of  the  governed.  No  other 
power  could,  of  course,  be  so  derived.  But  Congress,  fol- 
lowing the  example  of  the  British  crown,  entered  upon  the 
exercise  of  this  usurpation  at  its  first  session  under  the  Con- 
stitution. This  shows  how  deeply  the  despotic  current  had 
eroded  its  way  into  every  stratum  of  Anglo-Saxon  life.  It 
proves  that  even  the  grand  men  of  the  Revolution  were  not 
on  their  guard  against  some  of  the  most  dangerous  foes  of 
Free  Government.  They  threw  off  the  form  of  tyranny,  de- 
clared for  a  republic  and  then  allowed  institutions  which 


244:  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

were  of  the  very  essence  of  despotism  and  which  gave  life 
and  vigor  to  tyranny  to  remain.  They  declared  "that  all 
men  were  created  equal"  and,  strange  to  say,  proceeded  at 
the  very  first  session  of  Congress  to  pass  laws  to  create 
inequalities  and  to  give  certain  associations  of  individuals 
advantages  with  which  they  were  never,  either  collectively 
or  individually,  endowed  by  the  Creator.  Such  are  some 
of  the  contradictions  of  even  enlightened  statesmanship. 
The  bill  for  the  incorporation  of 

THE   BANK   OF   THE  UNITED    STATES 

was  passed  February  25,  1791,  by  the  first  Congress  which 
assembled  under  the  Constitution.  The  charter  provided 
that  it  should  run  for  twenty  years,  during  which  period  no 
other  bank  should  be  chartered  by  Congress.  The  scheme 
originated  with  Alexander  Hamilton,  then  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  and  was  copied  from  the  Act  of  Parliament 
incorporating  the  Bank  of  England  which  had  been  in 
operation  for  nearly  one  hundred  years.  The  capital  of 
this  bank  was  $10, 000, 000.  The  Government  held  one-fifth 
of  the  stock  and  elected  five  of  the  directors.  The  English 
model  was  copied  in  all  essential  pai'ticulars,  even  to  the 
power  conferred  to  establish  branch  banks,  wherever  in 
the  judgment  of  the  president  and  directors  of  the  bank, 
such  branches  might  be  deemed  necessary.  The  charter 
expired  in  1811,  during  Mr.  Madison's  administration.  The 
original  charter  had  been  opposed  by  Mr-  Jefferson  and 
its  renewal  was  also  opposed  by  him  and  the  party  in 
power.  Another  charter  for  twenty  years  was,  however, 
secured  in  1818,  during  Mr.  Madison's  second  term.  It 
was  granted  upon  the  payment  of  $1,500,000  to  the  Govern- 
ment as  a  bonus.  A  capital  of  $35,000,000  was  permitted 
by  this  charter.  This  bank  had  a  turbulent  career  under 
its  two  charters  which  covered  a  period  of  forty  years.     It 


EVOLUTION   IN   CRIME.  245 

was  finally  overthrown  by  President  Jackson's  veto  during 
his  first  term  and  expired  in  1836,  during  his  second  term, 
by  limitation  of  charter .  The  veto  of  the  bill  to  re-char*Ter 
the  bank  was  the  most  absorbing  issue  in  the  campaign  of 
1832,  and  resulted  in  a  signal  victory  for  the  anti-bank  men 
and  in  the  triumphant  re-election  of  General  Jackson  to  the 
Presidency.  Thomas  H.  Benton  remarked  to  a  friend  after 
Jackson  had  been  vindicated  in  the  campaign  of  1832,  that 
"Jackson  had  not  slain  the  United  States  Bank.  The  bank 
was  a  wounded  tigress.  She  had  fled  to  the  jungles  but 
would  return  again  bringing  her  whelps  with  her.  " 

It  is  gratifying  to  know  that  all  attempts  to  establish  this 
bank  met  with  the  unconquerable  opposition  of  both  Jeffer- 
son and  Jackson. 

The  question  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  act  to  charter 
the  bank  came  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  from  the  State  of  Maryland  and  was  decided  in 
1819.  McOidlochv.  The  State  of  Maryland,  4th  Wheaton, 
316.  The  President  and  Directors  of  the  parent  bank  at 
Philadelphia,  had,  in  pursuance  of  the  charter,  established 
a  branch  bank  of  issue,  discount  and  deposit  in  the  city  of 
Baltimore.  An  act  of  the  Legislature  of  Maryland, 
approved  February  11,  1818,  imposed  a  tax  "on  all  banks 
or  branches  thereof,  in  the  State  of  Maryland,  not  char- 
tered by  the  Legislature."  The  act  required  the  bank  to 
issue  notes  of  certain  denominations,  and  only  upon 
stamped  paper  to  be  prepared  and  furnished  by  the  State. 
The  tax  imposed  by  the  law  was  to  be  paid  by  the  pur- 
chase and  use  of  this  stamped  paper.  McCalloch,  wlio 
was  the  cashier  of  the  branch  bank,  refused  to  comply 
with  the  Maryland  statute,  claiming  that  the  act  was  repug- 
nant to  the  Constitution  and  in  conflict  with  the  act  of  Con- 
gress chartering  the  bank. 


246  A    CALL   TO   ACTION. 

The  State  of  Maryland,  by  its  counsel  assumed  the 
absurd  position  that  the  power  to  create  a  corporation  is 
one  pertaining  to  Sovereignty  and  was  not  conferred  upon 
Congress  but  remained  with  the  States.  That  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  is  one  of  enumerated  and  lim- 
ited powers  which  were  delegated  by  the  states  which  alone 
are  truly  sovereign.  Of  course,  nothing  but  defeat  could 
await  the  State  upon  such  an  unskillful  and  ill-advised  issue 
as  this.  The  contention  was  as  to  where  the  power  was 
lodged  and  not  as  to  its  existence.  Hence  the  vital  and 
all  controlling  question  was  not  presented  at  all. 

If  counsel  had  taken  the  position  that  the  power  to 
create  a  corporation  existed  neither  in  the  Constitution  nor 
in  the  nature  of  Sovereignty;  that  all  things  which  are 
within  the  scope  of  human  authority  could  be  accomplished 
by  agreement;  but  that  all  the  people  in  the  State  com- 
bined could  not  by  agreement  create  a  corporation,  and 
that  this  being  so,  they  could  not  b}'  implication  empower 
the  legislature  to  create  it;  that  it  existed  only  by  bold  and 
unmixed  usurpation  and  was  in  deadly  conflict  with  Repub- 
lican institutions,  their  position  would  have  been  unassail- 
able. They  could  have  urged  with  irresistable  logic  the  doc- 
trine that  Government  derives  its  just  powers,  both  enumer- 
ated and  implied,  from  the  consent  of  the  governed;  that 
the  limitations  of  human  authority  had  interposed  to  pre- 
vent the  people  from  delegating  to  the  Government  an 
express  power  which  they  did  not  themselves  possess  and 
that  no  power  could  possibly  be  implied  for  that  reason. 
Had  they  planted  themselves  squarely  upon  this  ground, 
no  Court  could  have  disregarded  the  argument.  It  were 
impossible  that  an  enlightened  judiciary  should  go  beyond 
the  limitations  of  human  nature  in  search  for  implied 
authority  to  bolster  up  an  act  of  questionable  legislation. 
The  opinion  in  this  case  was  pronounced  by  Chief  Justics 


'  EVOLUTION   IN    CKIME.  247 

Marshall  at  the  February  terra  1819,  the  same  term  at 
which  he  promulgated  the  opinion  in  the  celebrated  Dart- 
mouth College  case  referred  to  in  our  chapter  on  the 
Supreme  Court.  In  the  Dartmouth  College  case  the  doc- 
trine of  the  immutability  of  charters  and  of  vested  rights 
arising  undc»r  them  was  established;  while  in  the  McCul- 
loch  case  the  power  of  Congress  to  grant  charters  and 
create  corporations,  as  against  any  power  remaining  within 
the  states,  was  upheld.  The  year  1819  constitutes  an 
epoch  in  the  history  of  this  country. 

Strangely  enough  the  opinion  in  the  McCulloch  case  has 
been  acquiesced  in  as  establishing  the  doctrine  that  Congress 
has  constitutional  authority  to  grant  charters  and  create 
corporations  for  pecuniary  profit.  It  simply  decided  that 
the  States  were  not  supreme  and  sovereign  as  against  the 
General  government,  or  rather  that  the  General  govern- 
ment is  supreme  within  its  sphere  as  against  the  States. 

Since  the  rendition  of  this  decision  Congress  has  passed 
a  great  variety  of  incorporation  laws;  for  example,  the 
National  Banking  Acts,  the  Acts  Incorporating  the  Pacific 
Kailroads,  the  Act  Incorporating  Savings  Banks  in  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia,  the  Act  to  Incorporate  the  Nicaraugua 
Canal  Company,  and  many  others.  But  the  influence  of 
these  two  great  decisions  was  far  reaching  and  prodigious. 
The  power  to  create  corporations  being  firmly  established, 
as  it  was  supposed,  the  great  commercial  advantages  to  be 
derived  through  their  instrumentality  gradually  allured 
enterprising  men  to  form  incorporated  trade  associations  in 
various  parts  of  the  country.  Finally  the  various  State  Leg- 
islatures, municipalities  and  State  Constitutional  conven- 
tions plunged  headlong  into  the  roaring  flood.  Soon  the 
whole  country  was  submerged  and  swept  beneath  the 
resistless  current.  For  a  full  quarter  of  a  centur}^  the  indi- 
vidual, as  such,  has  been  lost  sight  of  in  a  mad  rush  for 


248  A    CAI,L   TO   ACTION. 

corporate  adventure.  The  corporation  and  the  wealth 
which  it  brings  have  become  the  chief  concern  of  society 
and  the  State.  The  man  and  the  family  have  been  driven 
to  the  wall,  the  weak  trampled  under  foot  and  the  choicest 
opportunities  of  the  century  showered  upon  chartered  com- 
binations. Wealth,  already  possessing  great  advantages, 
is  not  satisfied,  and  incorporates  in  order  that  it  may  have 
still  greater  power.  Every  class  of  business,  every 
calling,  everything  except  poverty,  operates  under  a  char- 
ter. The  poor  must  defend  themselves  as  best  they  can, 
single-handed  and  alone.  Competition  and  personal  re- 
sponsibility, except  with  the  remaining  multitude  of  the 
poor,  are  literally  and  absolutely  annihilated  by  these 
monstrous  combinations.  They  exist  in  every  State  in  the 
Union,  by  thousands.  They  control  the  business  of  every 
city,  thrust  their  paid  lobbyists  within  the  corridors  and 
onto  the  floor  of  every  legislative  assembly,  and  importune 
every  city  council  for  exemptions,  concession  and  privilege. 

The  picture  which  opens  to  our  view  as  we  lift  the  curtain 
upon  the  scene  of  corporate  lapacity,  is  so  vast  and  bo  ter. 
rible  as  to  cause  us  to  shrink  back  aghast.  One  scarcely 
knows  where  to  begin  the  story,  and  having  once  begun,  it 
seems  like  mis-prison  of  a  felony  to  withhold  a  single  fact 
from  an  outraged  public.  But  the  field  is  illimitable  and 
the  desolation  indescribable.  We  can  only  pause  in  the 
presence  of  the  picture  for  a  few  moments — barely  long 
enough  to  call  the  attention  of  the  reader  to  the  outUnes  of 
the  situation. 

We  have  already,  in  our  chapter  on  Rome  and  the  United 
States,  spoken  of  the  Anthracite  Coal  Association  con- 
trolled by  the  great  railroad  and  mine  owners  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. We  wish  here  to  point  out  some  of  its  acts  of 
spoliation  and  piracy. 


EVOLUTION    IN    CRIME.  249 

The  annual  consumption  of  anthracite  is  now  not  far 
from  35,000,000  tons,  of  which  the  West  consumes  about 
8,000,000  tons.  In  July,  1883,  the  combination  put  the 
miners  upon  half  work  for  three  months  in  order  to  limit 
the  production  and  increase  the  price.  This  is  their  settled 
method  of  business  and  is  repeated  from  year  to  year.  In 
1871,  the  legislature  of  Pennsylvania  entered  upon  an  in- 
vestigation of  the  combine.  The  testimony  showed  that  a 
number  of  private  companies  desired  to  terminate  a  strike 
then  pending  among  the  miners  in  the  locality,  by  accept- 
ing the  terms  of  the  working  men.  But  the  six  great  com- 
panies, controlling  all  the  railroads  leading  to  and  from  the 
field  of  this  industry,  immediately  increased  their  rates  to 
three  times  the  previous  figures  and  thus  made  it  impossible 
for  the  small  companies  to  operate  their  mines.  The  price 
of  coal  immediately  advanced  to  $12.00  per  ton.  The 
small  owners  were  bankrupted  while  the  miners  and  their 
families  were  turned  out  to  starve  and  to  die. 

The  New  York  legislature  investigated  the  same  combi- 
nation in  1878.  The  investigation  was  caused  by  the  sudden 
rise  in  the  price  of  coal  to  double  what  it  had  formerly 
brought.  The  legislature  found  that  a  number  of  private 
mine  owners  were  willing  to  supply  the  market  at  prices 
much  below  those  asked  by  the  combine  and  '"would  do  sc 
if  they  could  get  transportation  from  the  mines  to  the  mar- 
ket." This  was  denied  them  by  the  six  great  companies. 
The  committee  found  that  "the  combination  can  limit  the 
supply  and  thereby  create  such  demand  and  prices  as  they 
may  deem  advisable."  They  also  found  that  the  companies 
had  advanced  the  price  of  coal  seventy-five  cents  and  one 
dollar  per  ton.  An  advance  of  only  fifty  cents  per  ton, 
would,  on  35,000,000  tons,  amount  to  $17,500,000  in  a  sin. 
gle  year!  Can  the  annals  of  piracy  on  all  the  seas,  for  any 
period  of  ten  years  in  its  history,  equal  the  rapacity  of  this 


250  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

single  transaction?  This  crime  is  repeated  from  year  to 
year,  while  64,000,000  people  stand  helpless  and  aghast 
at  the  audacious  spectacle! 

In  this  manner  the  vast  fortunes  of  the  six  companies 
and  their  share-holders  have  been  accumulated.  Their 
wealth  is  the  result  of  the  murder  of  hard  working  men, 
the  starvation  of  innocent  and  helpless  women  and  children 
and  the  open  and  periodic  plunder  of  the  inhabitants  of  a 
continent. 

The  Congressional  investigation  in  1887-8,  concerning 
the  strike  at  the  Redding  Collieries,  found  that  the  Oper- 
ators intentionally  provoked  the  miners  to  violence  in  order 
to  give  opportunity  to  shoot  the  '  'rioters. " 

Take  the  report  of  the  Ohio  Legislative  Committee  con- 
cerning the  horrors  of  the  Hocking  Yalley  strike  in  1885, 
the  assassinations  by  the  Pinkertons,  and  the  heart-rending 
appeals  of  women  and  children  for  mercy,  shelter  and 
bread.  Look  again  at  the  gaunt  starvation  at  Braidwood.  A 
whole  city  full  of  industrious  people  groaned  in  the  agonies 
of  want — babes  dying  of  hunger  in  their  mothers'  arms, 
and  mothers  and  offspring  perishing  together  on  pallets  of 
straw  without  food  and  without  mercy.  Let  the  reader 
take  a  glance  at  the  horrors  of  Punxsatawney,  of  the 
suffering  at  Brazil,  Ind.,  and  at  the  starvation,  carnage  and 
heartless  evictions  taking  place  as  we  write  in  the  Coke 
regions  of  Pennsylvania — each  and  every  instance  being 
the  result  of  corporate  rapacity,  and  then  tell  us  candidly 
what  he  thinks  of  the  relative  cruelty  of  the  two  systems 
of  piracy — tlie  old-fashioned  sea-roving,  with  its  black 
flags  and  bloody  decks,  and  the  modern  amphibious 
method  resulting  from  the  union  of  the  pirate  and  the 
brigand,  represented  by  the  corporation  with  its  organized 
systems  of  pillage,  reinforced  by  the  agency  of  hunger 
and  the  Pinkerton  thugs. 


EVOLUTION   IN   CKIME.  251 

Take  one  other  instance  from  among  the  coal  fields, 
Spring  Yalley,  Illinois.  This  mining  town  was  started 
in  1885,  under  the  auspices  of  three  gigantic  corporatiens 
and  a  newly  incorporated  town  site  company,  composed  of 
the  principal  men  in  the  three  corporations,  namely:  the 
Chicago  &  North-western  Railroad,  the  Spring  Yalley 
Coal  Company,  the  Spring  Valley  Town  Site  Company 
and  the  Northwest  Fuel  Company,  of  St.  Paul.  It  is 
estimated  that  the  capitalists  associated  in  these  enterprises 
represent  at  least  $500,000,000.  Great  inducements  had 
been  held  out  to  the  people  and  particularly  to  miners,  to 
locate  in  the  town  and  invest  their  small  savings  in 
homes  and  town  property.  Hundreds,  and  even  thousands 
of  men  rushed  to  the  new  field  from  Streator,  La  Salle, 
Braidwood,  Peru,  and  in  fact  from  almost  every  mining 
locality  in  the  Northwest,  and  went  to  work.  The  results 
were  not  as  fortunate  as  had  been  anticipated,  but  upon 
the  whole  were  re-assuring  and  promised  well  for  the 
future.  The  mining  population  soon  became  large  and 
the  community  was  prospering  and  being  rapidly  built  up. 
In  December,  1888,  without  a  word  of  warning,  with  no 
differences  of  opinion  or  known  conflict  of  interest  existing 
between  the  mine  owners  and  the  men,  seven  hundred 
miners  were  suddenly  told  to  take  away  their  tools  at  the 
close  of  the  day  and  not  return,  as  that  part  of  the  mine 
was  to  be  closed.  No  explanation  whatever  was  given. 
And  this  in  the  face  of  winter!  But  a  considerable  force 
of  men  in  other  parts  of  the  mine  were  allowed  to  remain 
and  they  aided,  as  best  they  could,  their  unfortunate 
brethren  and  their  families. 

In  April  following,  the  balance  of  the  force  was  dis- 
missed in  the  same  unceremonious  manner.  Previous  to 
this  lock-out  on  the  part  of  these  millionaires,  they  had 
been  paying  out  monthly  to  the  miners  of  this   district 


252  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

about  $250,000,  and  the  miners  had  been  investing  their 
Bmall  savings  in  the  purchase  of  homes  under  the  promise 
of  steady  employment.  Tlie  committee  appointed  by  the 
Governor  to  investigate  the  facts  in  this  dreadful  case,  re- 
ported in  September,  that  the  loss  to  the  miners  in  conse- 
quence of  the  lock-out  amounted  at  that  time  to  $800,000. 
Every  effort  was  made  by  the  outside  world  to  relieve  the 
distress,  but  the  corporations  were  relentless.  Sickness  and 
death  ensued.  The  committee  already  named,  say  in  their 
report:  "There  have  been  no  actual  cases  of  starvation  as 
the  miners  freely  divide  with  each  other.         *         *  * 

There  has  been  suffering  in  sickness  for  want  of  medicines 
and  proper  medical  attendance.  *  *  *  They 
do  not  parade  their  suffering;  they  conceal  it  rather,  espec- 
ially from  their  employers,  knowing  that  the  operators  rely 
upon  this  suffering  to  bring  them  sooner  or  later  to  terms." 
On  August  11,  1889,  a  car  load  of  provisions  was  sent 
down  from  the  good  people  of  Peoria.  A  press  account  of 
its  arrival  stated  that  "One  thousand  men  and  women 
tramped  down  from  Spring  Yalley  to  the  Rock  Island  de- 
pot at  midnight,  and  waited  for  hours  for  the  arrival  of  the 
car.  The  crowd  went  wild  with  delight  when  the  car  ar- 
rived. The  Spring  Yalley  Sentinel^  of  August  31,  declared 
"That  the  wives  and  children  of  miners  were  dying  of  star- 
vation right  in  the  garden  of  the  world."  A  correspondent 
of  the  New  York  World,  sent  to  the  locality  especially  to 
investigate  the  situation  at  Spring  Valley,  reported  that 
"From  a  cursory  examination,  it  is  a  low  estimate  to  say 
that  seven  out  of  every  ten  families  are  sick — seriously  so. 
Malarial  fevers,  diphtheria,  cholera-morbus,  agu^and  pneu- 
monia form  the  bulk  of  the  ailments.  *  *  *  * 
Scores  of  men,  women  and  children  have  found  a  last  rest- 
ing place  in  the  cemetery  since  the  lock-out."  This  account 
further  says  that  1,200  heads  of  families  had  been  out  of 


EVOLUTION   IN   CREVTR,.  253 

emplojrnent  from  May  to  August,  and  that  half  of  these 
families  had  been  without  food,  except  that  which  had  been 
given  them  by  charity.  But  why  pursue  further  the  sick- 
ening story?  Henry  D.  Lloyd,  in  his  work  entitled  "A 
Strike  of  Millionaires  Against  the  Miners,"  has  portrayed 
the  infamy  in  all  of  its  tragic  details.  This  book  is  the  Iliad 
of  the  battle  now  raging  between  man  and  the  corporation 
in  America.  Works  of  far  less  merit  have  convulsed  em- 
pires and  revolutionized  society.  It  is  an  alarm  bell  at 
midnight  to  startle  those  who  slumber  and  should  be  read 
by  the  million. 

Let  us  now  investigate  another  vast  field,  every  square 
mile  of  which  is  tormented  and  trodden  down  by  this  ever 
present  and  exasperating  scourge. 

THE   CATTLE   AND     DKESSED   BEEF   INDUSTRY. 

In  pursuing  this  branch  of  the  subject  the  reader  will 
catch  a  glimpse  of  stupendous  scale  upon  which  our  mod- 
ern buccaneers  loot  the  people  and  carr}^  on  with  impunity 
their  predaceous  calling.  As  we  advance  from  one  field  of 
rapacity  to  another  and  are  made  acquainted  with  the  fact 
that  the  whole  continent  is  literally  ravaged  by  these  vi- 
kings; that  no  community,  however  remote,  no  calling  how 
ever  humble,  is  free  from  their  havoc,  we  trust  the  reader 
may  vividly  realize  the  extreme  peril  to  our  civilization  and 
will  listen  with  becoming  gravity  to  appeals  for  immediate 
reform. 

As  is  well  known  to  all  farmers  and  stock-raisers,  there 
has  been  a  depressed  condition  of  the  cattle  industry  in  all 
parts  of  the  country  for  many  years.  The  decline  in 
prices  between  1884  and  1889  was  so  marked  as  to  spread 
consternation  and  bankruptcy  throughout  this  important 
vocation.  The  shrinkage  during  the  period  named  fell  but 
little  short  of  two  cents  per  pound  on  all  grades  of  beet 


25i  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

cattle.  Ruin  and  poverty  followed.  The  cause  of  the 
decline  was  well  understood  and  the  indignation  felt  within 
industrial  circles  found  expression  in  various  ways,  partic- 
ularly in  pointed  and  well  directed  resolutions  adopted  by 
the  Alliance  and  other  organizations  among  farmers. 
It  became  evident  that  certain  localities  and  business  cen- 
ters were  being  discriminated  against,  and  this  aroused 
another  class  of  influential  people.  Investigation  was  de- 
manded. Finally,  on  the  16th  day  of  May,  1888,  the  Sen- 
ate of  the  United  States,  by  resolution,  directed  the  presi- 
dent of  the  Senate  to  appoint  a  select  committee  of  five  on 
the  Transportation  and  Sale  of  Meat  Products. 

The  resolution,  among  other  things,  directed  the  com- 
mittee to  inquire  "whether  there  exists  or  has  existed  any 
combination  of  any  kind,  either  on  the  part  of  the  trunk 
line  association,  or  the  Central  Traffic  Association,  or  other 
agencies  of  transportation,  or  on  the  part  of  those  engaged 
in  buying  and  shipping  beef  products,  by  reason  of  which 
the  prices  of  beef  and  beef  cattle  have  been  so  controlled  or 
affected  as  to  diminish  the  price  paid  the  producer  without 
lessening  the  cost  of  meat  to  the  consumer." 

The  committee,  consisting  of  Hon.  G.  G.  Vest,  of  Mis- 
souri, chairman;  Hon.  P.  B.  Plumb,  of  Kansas,  Hon.  S. 
M.  Cullom,  of  Illinois,  Hon.  0.  F.  Manderson,  of  Neb. 
raska,  and  Hon.  Richard  Coke,  of  Texas,  commenced 
their  work  at  St.  Louis,  November  20,  1888.  They  visited 
various  shipping  and  business  centers  throughout  the 
country,  took  testimony  extensively,  and  afforded  oppor- 
tunity for  the  various  interests  to  be  heard  through  agents, 
attorneys  and  otherwise.  The  committee  made  its  report 
to  the  Senate  through  Mr.  Yest,  May  1,  1890,  which  was 
printed,  and  is  known  as  Senate  Report  No.  829,  Fifty-first 
Congress.     It  is  a  startling  document  in  all  its  details. 


EVOLUTION   IN    CEIME.  255 

The  committee  found  that  "  the  method  of  selling  beel 
cattle  had  been  entirely  revolutionized  in  the  past  ten  years. 
In  place  of  the  old  system  when  shippers  and  butchers 
went  from  one  cattle-raiser  to  another,  competing  in  the 
purchase  of  cattle,  there  is  now  a  concentration  in  the 
market  at  a  few  points,  Chicago,  Kansas  City,  Omaha,  St. 
Louis,  Cincinnati  and  Pittsburgh,  with  the  controlling  mar- 
ket at  the  first  named  city.  The  cattle  producer  no  longer 
has  a  market  at  his  door,  but  must  take  or  ship  his  cattle  to 
the  market  in  one  of  these  cities." 

These  startling  statements  call  for  serious  consideration. 
The  consumption  of  beef  is  common  to  our  whole  popula- 
tion, scattered  throughout  all  the  states  and  territories. 
The  cattle  industry,  though  greater  in  some  parts  of  the 
country  than  in  others,  is  nevertheless,  commom  every- 
where. There  is  no  natural  reason  why  the  market  for  beef 
cattle  should  be  confined  exclusively  to  the  six  cities  above 
named,  nor  why  the  dealers  of  Chicago  should  fix  the 
prices  to  be  paid  by  the  buyers  at  the  other  localities.  It 
sounds  like  the  rankest  fiction  to  be  told  that  the  meat 
venders  in  a  thousand  cities,  towns  and  villages  dotting 
every  nook  and  corner  of  forty- four  states  and  four  terri- 
tories, exclusive  of  Alaska,  are  not  permitted  to  purchase 
food  cattle  from  neighboring  farmers  and  prepare  them  for 
consumption;  that  they  must  first  ship  their  cattle  to  distant 
cities,  unload  them  at  designated  stock-yards,  sell  them  to 
confederated  speculators  who  turn  them  over  to  another  set 
of  pals  to  be  slaughtered,  and  that  another  party  of  free- 
booters then  take  charge  of  the  carcasses  and  sliip  them 
back  to  the  cities  and  villages  near  where  the  cattle  were 
grown  and  where  the  finished  product  must  at  last  be  pur- 
chased at  extortionate  prices.  It  transcends  the  domain  of 
fiction  to  be  told  that  sixtj'-four  millions  of  people  are  not 
permitted  to  furnish  their  tables  or  replenish  their  larders 


256  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

unless  they  submit  uncomplainingly  to  this  high-handed 
outrage. 

If  such  is  the  state  of  affairs  the  conclusion  is  irresistable, 
that  we  are  a  subjugated  and  plutocratic  ridden  people,  and 
exist  and  hold  our  fortunes  at  the  sufferance  of  our  mas- 
ters. And  again,  if  we  contemplate  striking  a  blow  for 
liberty,  it  is  well  to  know  who  are  the  tyrants  and  we  must 
also  understand  the  instruments  through  which  the  oppressors 
have  enslaved  us.  The  investigations  and  report  of  the 
Senate  committee  do  not  leave  us  in  doubt  as  to  either. 

The  committee  report  that  the  revolution  in  the  cattle 
industry  is  due  to  combinations  between  railroad  corpora- 
tions, the  establishment  of  stock-yards  owned  by  parties 
connected  with  the  railroads  upon  whose  lines  these  yards 
are  located,  and  to  the  fact  that  a  few  men  at  Chicago,  of 
enormous  capital,  who  are  engaged  in  the  packing  and 
dressed  beef  business,  are,  by  reason  of  their  understand- 
ing with  the  railroad  magnates,  enabled  to  dominate  abso- 
lutely the  price  of  beef  cattle  for  the  whole  country.  The 
committee  found  that  in  the  year  1873,  the  three  great  trunk 
railroads,  running  between  Chicago  and  New  York,  the 
Pennsjdvania  Central,  New  York  Central  and  the  Erie, 
entered  into  a  combination  with  certain  Chicago  shippers 
known  as  ' '  Eveners, "  to  charge  $115  for  each  car  load  of 
cattle  shipped  over  their  lines  from  Chicago  to  New  York, 
and  to  allow  the  "Eveners  "  fifteen  dollars  on  each  car  load 
of  cattle  so  shipped.  This  practically  destroyed  the  St. 
Louis  market.  Had  a  half  dozen  piratical  crafts  steamed 
up  the  Mississippi,  cast  anchor  and  proceeded  to  loot  the 
city,  they  could  not  have  inflicted  half  the  damage  that 
resulted  to  the  business  interests  of  St.  Louis  from  this 
"Evener's"  combine  headed  by  the  three  great  railroad 
corporations.  It  began  in  1873  and  continued  for  a  little 
over  five  years.     The  fifteen  dollar  rebate  was  only  allowed 


EVOLUTION   IN    CRIME.  257 

the  Chicago  shippers  and  was  denied  to  all  others.     The 
committee  say: 

"The  'Evener'  combination  terminated  about  1878-9, 
and  when  we  consider  the  fact  that  the  three  great  roads 
composing  it  monopolized  the  entire  cattle  transportation 
from  Chicago  to  New  York,  amounting  to  four  million 
cattle  between  1871  and  1879,  and  that  the  enorraons  sum 
paid  by  cattle  shippers  at  the  stock  yards  were  added  to 
freight  charges,  and  the  whole  amount  collected  from  the 
cattle  interests,  some  idea  may  be  formed  of  the  profits 
divided  by  the  parties  engaged  in  the  conspiracy.  The 
inevitable  effect  of  this  combine,  which  gave  a  premium  of 
fifteen  dollars  a  car  upon  all  cattle  shipped  from  Chicago 
east,  was  to  concentrate  the  marketing  of  all  western  cattle 
at  Chicago," 

The  cattle  receipts  at  the  Union  Stock  Yards  rose  from 
684,075  in  1872,  to  1,083,068  in  1878: 

About  the  time  the  "Evener"  combination  ceased,  the 
dressed  beef  interests,  which  now  controls  the  entire  market 
of  the  country,  rose  to  prominence  and  began  its  gigantic 
and  unparalleled  career  of  depredation. 

In  1888  there  were  584,533  head  of  cattle  slaughtered  at 
Chicago  for  canning  purposes,  and  in  1889  two  million  head 
were  slaughtered  for  the  dressed  beef  trade.  The  report 
says:  "This  great  business  is  practically  in  the  hands  of 
four  establishments  at  Chicago:  Armour  &  Co.,  Swift  & 
Co.,  Nelson  Morris  &  Co.,  and  Hammond  &  Co.  Of 
these  Armour  &  Co.  and  Swift  &  Co.  are  the  largest 
houses,  their  maximum  capacity  for  slaughtering  being 
3,600  cattle,  3,000  sheep,  and  12,000  hogs  every  ten  hours. 
Besides  the  houses  at  Chicago  there  are  branches  of  Ar- 
mour &  Co.'s  establishment  at  Kansas  City,  Missouri,  and 
Omaha,  and  of  Swift  &  Co.  at  Kansas  City  and  Omaha,  and 
of  Nelson  Morris  &  Co.  at  Kansas  City  and  St.  Louis." 
17 


258  A   CALL  TO   ACTIOil. 

The  control  of  tbe  cattle  market  is  completely  within  the 
^rasp  of  these  firms  and  they  combine  among  themselves 
not  to  bid  against  each  other  and  to  crush  out  competition 
whenever  and  wherever  it  mnv  arise  and  to  further  terrorize 
and  boycott  all  who  have  the  temerity  to  question  their 
right  to  plunder  the  people.  Mr.  Levcrett  Leonard,  of 
Saline  county,  Missouri,  testified  before  the  committee  that 
he  owned  three  or  four  hundred  head  of  cattle  which  he 
had  been  feeding  for  a  year,  and  that  he  had  been  warned 
by  a  faithful  friend  not  to  ship  them  in  his  own  name  as 
he  was  spotted  in  the  market,  and  he  states  that  he  has  no 
doubt  about  the  correctness  of  his  information. 

"When  the  committee  visited  Chicago  they  were  unable 
to  procure  full  and  frank  testimony  from  either  the  com- 
mission men  at  the  Union  Stock  Yards,  or  from  the  em- 
ployes of  the  packing  and  dressed  beef  houses.  They 
stated  to  the  committee  in  private  that  the  "big  four"  had 
combined,  but  when  put  upon  the  stand,  the  committee  say 
"they  shuffled  and  prevaricated  to  such  a  degree  as  in 
many  cases  to  create  commiseration."  The  agents  of  the 
dressed  beef  houses  evaded  the  service  of  process,  and 
failed  to  appear  even  after  being  summoned.  P.  D.  Ar- 
mour, Nelson  Morris,  Louis  F.  Swift,  and  Frank  E.  Yogel 
and  two  of  their  agents,  refused  to  obey  the  summons  of 
the  Senate  committee.  The  first  named  gentleman  did 
finally  appear  before  the  committee  at  Washingten,  "out 
of  respect"  as  he  stated  in  his  testimony. 

The  committee's  stay  and  work  in  the  city  of  Chicago 
was  made  very  unpleasant.  They  state  in  their  report  that 
the  business  interests  and  the  press  of  the  city  are  in  sym- 
pathy with  and  under  the  influence  of  these  gigantic  firms. 

The  Senate  committee  further  state  that  "the  overwhelm- 
ing weight  of  testimony  from  witnesses  of  the  highest 
character,  and  from  all  parts  of  the  west,  is  to  the  effect 


EVOLUTION   IN   CKIME.  259 

that  the  cattle  owners  going  with  their  cattle  to  Chicago 
and  Kansas  City  markets  find  no  competition  among  buy- 
ers, and  if  they  refuse  to  take  the  first  bid  are  generally 
forced  to  take  a  lower  one." 

The  conspiracy  extends  not  alone  to  controlling  the  price 
of  beef  cattle,  but  also  to  controlling  the  price  of  dressed 
beef  to  consumers.  Concerning  the  latter  the  committee 
find: 

''''First.  It  is  admitted  that  they  combined  to  fix  the 
price  of  beef  to  the  purchaser  and  consumer,  so  as  to  keep 
up  the  cost  in  their  own  interest.  (P.  D.  Armour's  testi- 
mony, p.  481.) 

'  Second.  It  is  admitted  that  they  have  an  agreement  not 
to  interfere  with  each  other  in  certain  markets  and  localities 
in  the  sale  of  their  meat.  (S.  B.  Armour's  testimony,  p. 
364.) 

''''Third.  It  is  proved  beyond  doubt  that  they  acted  to- 
gether in  supplying  meat  to  the  Soldiers'  Home,  at  Hamp- 
ton, Va.,  the  National  Hospital  for  the  Insane  and  other 
public  institutions  at  Washington,  D.  C,  the  bid  for  con- 
tracts being  made  by  one,  and  the  meats  being  then  sup- 
plied by  each  of  the  dressed  beef  men  alternately  for  stated 
periods.  (Testimony  of  Dr.  "W.  W.  Godding,  p.  499  ;  C 
K.  Purvis,  p.  50;  G.  N.  Omohundro,  p.  504;  W.  H. 
Hoover,  p.  502.) 

^''Fourth.  They  combined  in  opening  shops  and  under 
selling  the  butchers  of  cattle  at  Detroit  and  other  places  in 
Michigan,  and  at  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  in  order  to  force  them  to 
buy  dressed  meat.  (Testimony  of  John  Duff,  p.  154; 
William  Peters,  p.  169.) 

'"'' Fifth.  They  combined  in  refusing  to  sell  any  meat  to 
butchers  at  Washington,  D.  C,  because  the  butchers  had 
bid  against  them  for  contracts  to  supply  with  meats  the 
Government  institutions  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
(Testimony  of  W.  H.  Hoover,  p.  502;  testimony  of  J.  N. 
Hoover,  p.  505;  testimony  of  Santus  Auth,  p.  508.) 

'"Sixth.  They  acted  together  at  Chicago  in  refusing  to 
come  before  the  committee  as  witnesses,  and  in  preventing 
their  employes  and  agents  from  coming,  it  being  an  open 


260  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

secret  that  they  met  together  with  their  counsel  and  agreed 
to  their  action. 

"With  this  overwhelminof  proof  of  a  common  interest  and 
intent,  we  submit  that  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  with  the 
most  apparent  motive  for  such  action  the  same  parties,  or 
their  subordinates  with  their  knowledge,  do  not  avail  them- 
selves of  the  opportunity  presented  by  the  centralization  of 
markets  to  combine  for  the  purpose  of  lowering  the  prices 
of  cattle. 

"The  declaration  of  Mr.  P.  D.  Armour  that  he  personally 
had  no  agreement  with  other  buyers  not  to  bid  against  each 
other  is  not  conclusive,  for  he  testifies  himself  that  his 
agents  acted  as  to  business  matters  without  his  consent. 

"In  one  instance,  as  shown  by  the  testimony,  thefollowing 
telegram  was  sent  from  the  office  of  Armour  &  Company, 
at  Chicago: 

December  18,  1888. 
H,  P.  Lacey,  Freeland,  Pa.: 

Can  not  allow  Schwabe  to  continue  killing  live  cattle.  If  he  will 
not  stop,  make  other  arrangements  and  make  prices  so  as  can  get 
his  trade.  Armour  &  Company. 

"Lacey,  to  whom  this  telegram  was  addressed,  acted  as 
the  agent  of  Armour  &  Company  at  Freeland,  and 
Schwabe  was  a  butcher  at  that  place.  Mr.  Schwabe  ap- 
peared before  the  committee  and  testified  that  he  was 
approached  by  Lacey  with  a  proposition  to  act  in  partner- 
ship with  Lacey  in  the  sale  of  dressed  beef  at  Freeland  for 
the  firm  of  Armour  &  Company;  that  he  refused,  and  was 
then  informed  by  Lacey  that  he  would  be  broken  up  in  bus- 
iness. Notwithstanding  this  threat,  Schwabe  continued  to 
butcher,  and  made  his  purchases  of  cattle  at  Buffalo.  He 
testified  that  from  the  time  of  his  refusal  to  sell  dressed 
beef  as  proposed  by  Lacey,  he  could  not  buy  any  meat 
from  Armour  &  Company,  and  could  not  get  any  cars  from 
the  Erie  Railroad  to  ship  his  cattle  from  Buffalo,  but  was 
compelled  to  ship  on  the  Delaware  &  Lackawanna  by  a 
route  not  so  direct.  Li  other  words,  he  was  boycotted  by 
the  Erie  Railroad  and  Armour  &  Company  for  his  refusal 
to  discontinue  killing  cattle. 

"Mr.  P.  D.  Arnrour  frankly  admitted  that  at  Akron, 
Ohio,,  his  firm  established  shops  and  sold  dressed  beef  at 


EVOLUTION   IN    CKIME.  26] 

such  prices  as  forced  the  local  butchers  to  sell  his  dressed 
meat." 

If  this  is  not  the  boldest  kind  of  wholesale  piracy,  wil] 
the  reader  kindly  give  it  a  name?  It  is  both  rapine  and 
starvation  combined.  It  disregards  not  only  the  fortune? 
but  the  lives  of  its  victims.  We  venture  to  ask  the  readei 
what  he  thinks  of  the  political  status  and  economic  situa- 
tion which  tolerates  such  things  and  renders  them  possible? 

Since  the  committee  took  its  testimony  one  of  the  firms, 
Hammond  &  Co.,  have  sold  to  an  English  syndicate. 

But  the  committee  further  report : 

"Under  the  terms  of  the  resolution  creating  the  commit- 
tee we  were  instructed  to  inquire  as  to  the  transportation 
of  meat  products,  and  we  have  endeavored  to  discharge 
that  duty. 

''No  one  factor  has  been  more  potent  and  active  in  effect- 
ing an  entire  revolution  in  the  methods  of  marketing  the 
meat  supply  of  the  United  States  than  the  railway  trans- 
portation. 

"We  have  alluded  in  a  former  part  of  this  report  to  the 
Evener  Combination  between  the  great  railroads  running 
East  from  Chicago,  and  while  that  arrangement  terminated 
some  years  ago,  there  are  other  and  more  powerful  associ- 
ations between  railroad  companies,  now  operative,  which 
affect  vitally  the  meat  supply  of  the  country. 

"At  the  city  of  Chicago  is  the  Central  Traffic  Association 
embracing  nearly  all  the  raih'oads  west  of  Pittsburgh,  and 
from  Chicago  to  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  Rivers,  while  the 
Trunk  Line  Association  at  New  York  has  in  its  member- 
ship all  the  roads  running  east  from  Chicago,  The  object 
of  forming  these  associations  is  to  prevent  cutting  in  rates 
as  between  the  roads,  and  to  control  the  entire  traffic  of 
the  country  in  the  interest  of  the  railroad  companies. 
Practically  it  is  one  combination,  for  the  Trunk  Line  Asso- 
ciation, by  means  of  the  connecting  lines  controlled  b}^  the 
great  Eastern  roads,  the  Pennsylvania,  New  Yoriv  Central 
Erie,  and  Baltimore  and  Ohio,  all  of  which  belong  to  the 


262  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

Trunk  Line  Association,   dominates    the   Central    TraflBc 
Association. 

'  'The  enormous  power  wielded  by  the  Trunk  Line  Associ- 
ation is  almost  incalculable.  Every  pound  of  freight  and 
every  head  of  cattle  and  hogs  going  either  way  across  the 
continent  must  pay  tribute  to  the  roads  comprising  this 
vast  combine.  At  its  head  is  the  president  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad,  a  corporation  whose  yice-president  testified 
before  the  committee  that  his  company  controlled  7,000 
miles  of  railway,  and  had  on  its  pay-roll  80,000  employes. 
Consolidated  in  purpose,  and  under  the  management  of 
able  men  whose  lives  are  devoted  to  corporate  interests, 
there  can  not  be  imagined  an  organization  more  potent  than 
this  combination. 

"As  a  necessary  result  of  the  concentration  at  Chicago  of 
the  cattle  trade  by  railroad  combination,  there  was  estab- 
lished at  that  place  the  Union  Stock  Yards,  and  similar 
yards  at  Buffalo  between  Chicago  and  New  York. 

"The  Union  Stock  Yards  Company  has  a  capital  stock  of 
$4,400,000,  owns  320  acres  of  ground,  of  which  200  acres 
are  used  for  the  yards  and  120  occupied  for  railway  tracks. 
The  company  has  nearly  100  miles  of  railroad  connecting 
with  all  the  roads  coming  to  Chicago,  and  employs  in  its 
yard  nearly  2,000  men.  The  capacity  of  these  yards  is 
about  25,000  cattle,  120,000  hogs  and  15,000  sheep  daily. 

"Some  idea  can  be  obtained  of  the  profits  secured  by  this 
enterprise  when  we  reflect  that  the  charges  for  feed,  which 
must  be  bought  exclusively  from  the  compan}^,  are  $1  per 
100  pounds  for  prairie  hay,  $1.50  for  tame  hay,  and  $1  a 
bushel  for  corn.  To  this  must  be  added  the  charge  of  25 
cents  for  each  head  of  cattle  entering  the  yards,  8  cents  on 
every  hog,  and  5  cents  on  each  sheep. 

"For  the  year  1889  we  find  from  the  official  report  of  the 
Union  Stock  Yards  that  there  were  yarded,  exclusive  of 
calves,  3,023,281  cattle,  5,998,526  hogs,  and  1,832,469 
sheep,  making  the  amounts  received  by  the  company  for 
yardage  alone  $1,327,325. 

"As  a  practical  illustration  of  the  charges  to  which  the 
shipper  is  subjected  at  these  yards,  we  give  the  following 
copy  of  returns  actuall}^  made  to  a  Missouri  farmer: 


EVOLUTION   IN    CRIME.  263 

Nov.   4.  18  hogs,  4,390  pounds,  $3.60  per  100 $       158.04 

4.  49  hogs,  9,520  pounds,  $3.70  per  100.. . .  352.24 

4.  1  cripple  10— 1  dead 13.00 

5.  20  hogs,  4,690  pounds,  $3.50  per  ] 00. . . .  164.15 

5.  1  pig 3.00 

5.  54  hogs,  10,170  pounds,  $3.85  per  100. . .  391.54 

5.  33  hogs,  4,650  pounds,  $3.85  per  100. . . .  217.53 

6.  29  hogs,  7,820  pounds,  $3.55  per  100. . . .  277.61 

6.  2  pigs,  230  pounds 6.90 

6.  Ipig 3.60 

Total $    1,586.61 

Charges,  railroad $  219.80 

Yardage 16.48 

Corn , 11.20 

Commission ^. 18.00 

265.48 

Net  proceeds $   1,321.13 

"As  specimens  of  the  feed  bills  we  give  the  following 
which  were  paid  at  Chicago  by  the  same  person: 

October  30,  3  cattle;  Novembers,  15  cattle;  November  1,  1  cow. 
Charges,  hay,  $47.55. 

Another — 

October  29,  4  cattle;  November  3,  14  cattle.     Charges,  hay,  $43.95. 
February  3,  157  hogs.    Charges,  corn.  $28. 

"This  evidence  is  valuable  for  two  purposes.  It  shows 
the  exorbitant  and  rapacious  charges  inflicted  upon  cattle 
owners  and  shippers,  and  it  furnishes  an  explanation  of  the 
motives  which  actuate  the  men  who  own  the  railroads  in 
their  action  as  to  the  transportation  of  cattle  and  dressed 
beef. 

"The  secretary  of  the  Union  Stock  Yards  testified  at 
Chicago  that  when  the  company  was  established  the  stock 
was  subscribed  by  the  railroads,  but  when  asked  to  show 
his  stock  books  he  declined,  after  consultation  with  the 
company's  attorneys,  and  persisted  in  this  refusal  at  Wash- 
ington City. 

"For  the  purposes  of  our  investigation  it  was  not  consid- 
ered necessary  to  ascertain  in  whose  names  the  stock  now 
stands,  for  we  were  satisfied  that  whatever  the  ownership 
it  would  not  appear  in  the  names  of  the  railroad  presidents, 
directors  and  stock-holders,  who  are  the  real  owners. 


264:  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

"The  refusal  of  the  secretary,  under  direction  of  his  em- 
ployers, to  make  public  the  list  of  stockholders  must  have 
been  because  of  the  fact  that  the  same  men  own  the  stock 
yards  and  the  railroads  running  to  them,  and  they  do  not 
propose  to  submit  their  books  to  scrutiny,  because  they 
dread  the  truth. 

MONOPOLY  OF  EXPORT  TRANSPORTATION. 

"The  testimony  of  witnesses  connected  with  the  lines  of 
steamers  running  from  New  York  to  foreign  ports  dis- 
closed the  fact  that  it  is  the  custom  for  certain  shippers  to 
engage  for  months  in  advance  all  the  carrying  capacity  of 
steamers  transporting  live  cattle  and  dressed  beef  abroad, 
so  as  to  shut  out  other  parties  entirely  from  the  foreign 
trade. 

"The  proof  showed  that  in  some  instances  all  the  steam- 
ers in  a  line  would  be  contracted  for  months  in  advance  to 
une  shipper.    (Printed  testimony,  pp.  555,  556  and  557.) 

"The  only  reason  assigned  for  this  extraordinary  pro- 
ceeding is  the  pretext  that  if  the  carrying  capacity  of  a 
steamer  should  be  divided  between  two  or  more  shippers, 
their  employes  in  charge  of  the  cattle  would  engage  in 
quarrels  and  fights,  which  caused  trouble  and  annoyance  to 
the  officers! 

"As  one  witness  expressed  it,  'the  idea  is  that  the  cattle- 
tenders  get  to  fighting  and  we  cannot  control  them,  but 
where  we  have  but  one  man's  servants  we  can  control 
them.' 

"These  exclusive  contracts  are  not  made  after  advertise- 
ment to  the  highest  and  best  bidder,  nor  are  sealed  propos- 
als made  and  accepted.  The  testimony  shows  tliat  the  con- 
tracts made  by  the  steamship  lines  with  brokers  who  offer 
to  engage  one  or  more  steamers  for  a  certain  number  of 
months  at  a  certain  price  for  transportation  of  each  animal, 
and  after  the  contract  is  closed  the  steamers  contracted  are 
out  of  the  market.  From  that  time  the  monopoly  exists, 
and  it  is  useless  for  any  other  shipper  to  apply. 

"  When  it  is  considered  that  tliese  steamers  are  common 
carriers,  and  subject  to  the  law  regulating  the  rights  and 
duties  of  the  public  and  common  carriers,  the  enormity  of 


EVOLirriON   IN   CRIME.  265 

the  abuse  created  by  this  practice  of  monopolizing  their 
capacity  in  transporting  cattle  to  foreign  ports,  is  evident. 
The  plain  and  settled  provisions  of  the  law  governing 
common  carriers  require  them  to  receive  freight  as  it  is 
offered  from  all  shippers  alike  up  to  their  full  ability  to  re- 
ceive and  transport." 

The  report  of  the  Senate  committee  is  very  succinct  and 
complete.  We  have  copied  freely  from  it  in  order  to  give 
the  reader  some  idea  of  the  magnitude  of  the  pillage  con" 
nected  with  this  single  industry.  We  now  venture  to  ask 
him  if  he  does  not  think,  in  view  of  these  facts,  that  a  Gov- 
ernment which  will  stand  by  and  witness  such  wholesale 
spoliatioa  without  making  an  effort  to  protect  the  people, 
has  about  lost  its  vitality  and  virtue,  and  that  the  political 
parties  under  whose  fostering  care  these  outrages  have  been 
permitted  have  forfeited  the  respect  and  confidence  of  the 
people  ?  Does  not  duty  call  us  to  the  rescue,  and  dare  we 
longer  disregard  her  voice  'i 

LETTERS   OF   MARQUE. 

Letters  of  Marque,  in  the  present  age,  simply  consist  of 
a  license  or  extraordinary  commission,  granted  by  the  su- 
preme power  of  one  state  to  its  subjects  to  make  reprisals 
at  sea  on  the  subjects  of  another.  It  is  generally  done 
under  the  pretense  of  indemnification  for  injuries  received. 
By  treaty,  in  1856,  letters  of  marque  were  abolished  among 
European  nations.  They  were  generally  the  forerunner  of 
war,  and  the  persons  who  carried  them  little  else  than 
licensed  pirates.  The  practice  of  granting  such  commis- 
sions was  justified,  however,  by  the  most  enlightened  writ- 
ers upon  international  law,  and  obtained  among  the  most 
advanced  Christian  nations,  even  until  the  hand  upon  the 
dial  of  our  own  centuiy  had  passed  its  meridian.  In  fact, 
this  country  still  adheres  to  the  doctrine,  and  refused  to 
join  with  the  European  powers  in  the  treaty  of  1856. 


266  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  discern  some  color  of  reason  and 
justification  for  the  custom.  A  refusal  to  redress  grievan- 
ces is,  in  fact,  the  application  of  force  to  the  situation,  and 
force  must  be  met  with  force.  But  the  granting  of  letters 
of  marque  is  always  preceded  by  an  effort  on  the  part  of 
the  Sovereign  whose  subjects  are  injured  to  secure  peaceful 
and  orderly  redress.  Without  such  effort  the  practice  can- 
not be  justified,  as  it  is  equivalent  to  clothing  private  par- 
ties with  the  power  of  levying  war,  and  expressly  em- 
powers them  to  seize,  appropriate  and  destroy  property 
belonging  to  subjects  of  the  delinquent  nation. 

The  creation  of  corporations  for  pecuniary  profit,  either 
by  special  charter,  or  under  a  general  statute  of  authority, 
which  may  be  evoked  at  any  time  for  such  purpose,  bears 
strong  resemblance  to  the  practice  among  Nations  of  grant- 
ing letters  of  marque,  except  that  there  is  never  any  pre- 
ceding offense  to  justify  it.  The  corporation  is  always  au- 
thorized by  the  Sovereign  to  make  its  reprisals  upon  an 
unoffending  people.  If  the  powers  conferred  upon  the 
corporation  are  of  a  public  cliaracter,  such  as  should  be 
performed  by  the  Government  itself  but  are  conferred  upon 
an  association  of  individuals  for  private  gain,  the  resem- 
blance between  the  two  becomes  decidedly  striking.  In 
such  cases  the  pretext  is  that  it  is  for  the  public  good,  but 
in  fact  the  sovereign  power  is  farmed  out  for  private  gain 
and  the  public  is  depredated  upon  without  mercy.  Bank- 
ing, transportation  and  telegraph  companies  clearly  belong 
in  this  category.  They  are  public  corporations  clothed 
with  powers  that  clearly  belong  to  the  Government,  and 
they  exercise  their  exalted  prerogatives  for  private  emolu- 
ment. The  public  welfare  is  simply  subordinated  to  the 
exactions  of  private  greed. 

It  is  not  by  any  means  claimed  that  all  corporations  for 
pecuniary  profit  are  vicious,  either  in  design,  management 


EVOLUTION   IN   CRIME.  267 

or  consequences.  We  simply  affirm  that  the  power  to  do 
wrong  is  conferred  without  the  possibility  of  accompanying 
restraint.  The  children  of  men  acting  under  the  repression 
of  moral  and  legal  accountability,  evolve  about  all  the  evil 
that  humanity  can  bear,  and  the  supplimentary  harvest  of 
injustice  and  wrong  doing  which  results  from  the  creation 
of  a  horde  of  artificial  persons,  who  are  void  of  the  feelings 
of  pity  and  the  compunctions  of  conscience,  inflames  the 
situation  to  a  degree  which  threatens  the  destruction  of 
social  order. 

Among  all  nations  it  has  long  been  conceded  to  be  the 
duty  of  Sovereigns  to  construct  and  maintain  highways,  pro- 
vide the  circulating  medium  and  superintend  the  transmis- 
sion of  intelligence  among  their  subjects.  Common  sense 
and  ordinary  business  prudence  demand  that  we  should 
have,  in  such  matters,  the  most  efficient  service  at  the  low- 
est possible  cost.  But  the  present  system  imposes  an  im- 
perfect service  at  extortionate  rates.  Besides,  it  in  fact 
empowers  the  corporation  to  discriminate  between  individ- 
ual citizens  and  they  constantly  and  arbitrarily  exercise 
this  power.  The  Government  has  neither  the  moral  nor 
the  legal  right  to  discriminate  or  to  favor  one  citizen  in 
preference  to  another  in  matters  which  are  the  common 
right  of  all;  and  yet  the  corporation,  acting  with  delegated 
power,  seems  to  have  no  other  rule  of  action.  They  claim 
and  exercise  the  power  to  impoverish  one  individual  by 
discriminations,  and  to  enrich  another;  to  build  up  one 
city  and  to  lay  waste  another;  to  grant  favors  to  the  people 
of  one  locality  at  the  expense  and  to  the  utter  rain  of  the 
people  of  another.  No  Government,  guilty  of  such  things 
could  stand  for  a  single  year.  No  self-respecting  or  spirited 
people  woiild  for  a  moment  think  of  submitting  to  such 
oppression  at  the  hands  of  their  Government,  but  would 
fly  to  arms  without  hesitation.     They  would   choose   the 


268  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

hazards  of  war  and  perfer  the  perils  of  piracy  to  the  cer- 
tainty of  spoliation  under  such  a  state  of  society.  And 
yet  our  Government  has  chartered  thousands  of  cor- 
porations, turned  them  loose  upon  us  and  now  permits 
them  to  commit  from  year  to  year  these  very  outrages 
upon  our  people.  These  charters  are  neither  more  nor  less 
than  letters  of  marque,  authorizing  those  who  hold  them  to 
prey  upon  the  commerce  of  the  country,  and  they  are  the 
forerunners  of  something  still  more  serious  if  they  be  not 
speedily  recalled  and  the  evils  they  entail  quickly  remedied. 

The  United  States  Corporation  Bureau  of  Chicago  re- 
ports the  weekly  list  of  newly-completed  corporations  in  the 
United  States  for  the  week  ending  May  22d,  as  follows: 
Total  corporations,  362;  total  capitalization,  ^215,961,425; 
distributed  as  follows:  mercantile  and  manufacturing  com- 
panies, 176,  $15,688,675;  banks  (not  national)  and  invest- 
ment companies,  12,  $2,100,000;  national  banks  (to  May 
18th)  1,  $50,000;  gold,  silver  and  other  mining  and  smelt- 
ing companies,  7,  $3,090,00)0;  light,  heat,  power  and  trans- 
portation companies,  33,  837,532,000;  building  and  loan  as- 
sociations, 16,  $130,750,000;  miscellaneous,  89,  $7,548,750. 

If  we  take  the  report  for  tliis  week  as  an  average,  the 
corporations  organized  in  the  year  1891  will  record  the 
startling  aggregate  of  11,220,100.  The  value  of  all  the 
gold  and  silver  coin  of  the  whole  earth,  produced  during 
the  last  five  hundred  yeaT>=!,  barely  reaches  this  stupendous 
capitalization  of  the  cur:  jnt  year  !  The  object  had  in  view 
by  the  incorporators,  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  every 
hundred,  is  to  shirk  personal  responsibility  in  case  of  loss — 
to  exempt  the  private  property  of  the  stockholders  from 
execution.  These  enterprises  are  made  up  of  expectation 
and  apprehension.  If  expectations  are  realized,  corpora- 
tors flourish;  if  apprehensions  are  verified,  the  misfortune 
is  unloaded  upon  the  people.  Could  anything  be  more 
monstrous. 

The  abuses  which  flow  from  these  reckless  and  cruel  ven- 
tures will  be  farther  elaborated  when  we  come  to  treat  of 
the  transportation  problem. 


'^  CHAPTER    VII. 


ROME.  BRITAIN  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


A  COMPARISON. 

At  the  death  of  Theodosms,  A.  D,  395,  the  United 
Roman  Empire  was  divided  into  what  are  known  in  history 
as  the  Eastern  and  Western  Empires.  The  west,  with  its 
capital  at  Eome,  was  given  to  the  deceased  Emperor's  son 
Honorius,  and  the  east  to  the  other  son,  Arcadins,  with  the 
capital  at  Constantinople.  But  the  Empire  was  then  totter- 
ing near  its  fall.  When  the  great  Theodosius  died,  one  of 
his  ablest  military  chieftains,  Alaric,  liing  of  the  Yisigoths, 
taking  advantage  of  the  straightened  condition  of  the 
Government,  and  the  disorganized  state  of  public  senti- 
ment, made  war  upon  the  Romans.  In  the  year,  A.  D. 
40S,  he  reached  the  gates  of  Rome,  at  that  time  the  most 
magnificent  city  of  the  world.  The  people  were  unwilling 
to  defend  it  outright  and  so  the  wealthier  portion  of  the 
community  bought  Alaric  off  for  5,000  pounds  of  gold  and 
30,000  pounds  of  silver,  and  lus  army  was  withdrawn.  In 
the  year  409  the  siege  was  renewed,  and  finally  in  the  third 
campaign  (410)  the  city  was  taken  and  the  soldiers  were 
allowed  to  plunder  it  to  their  heart's  content.  It  seems 
strange  that  a  people  who  had  conquered  about  all  the 
nations  then  known,  and  whose  victorous  eagle  dominated 
over  all  the  countries  bordering  on  the  Mediterranean  sea, 
together  with  Britain  and  a  good  part  of  western  Asia,  and 


270  A    CALL  TO   ACTION. 

which  contained  within  its  own  lines  the  centers  of  wealth, 
education  and  refinement,  should  be  unable  to  defend 
themselves  against  the  barbarous  legions  of  this  fierce 
marauder  from  the  provinces  of  Northern  Europe.  The 
student  of  history  involuntarily  demands  an  explanation. 
The  problem  is  not  diflScult  of  solution.  Mankind  have 
ever  been  the  victims  of  tyrannical  power  and  tyranny  has 
a  variety  of  manifestations. 

When  society  is  rife  with  the  war-like  spirit,  the  military 
despot  is  the  oppressor.  When  the  martial  spirit  subsides, 
labor,  turning  its  attention  to  productive  pursuits,  smites 
the  earth  with  the  instruments  of  husbandry,  and  soon 
there  gushes  forth  from  its  surface  a  golden  stream,  ample 
to  supply  all  the  wants  of  the  children  of  men.  Contetit- 
ment,  that  fickle  and  elusive  goddess,  for  a  time  smiles 
upon  every  home  and  presides  at  every  fire-side.  As 
wealth  increases,  methods  of  distribution  and  exchange  are 
found  to  be  inadequate.  Barter  proves  to  be  tardy,  clumsy 
and  disappointing.  Society,  unmindful  of  its  power,  ap- 
peals to  individuals  instead  of  to  itself  to  furnish  facilities 
for  exchange.  These  auxiliaries  of  trade  and  commerce 
are  accordingly  furnished,  but  in  such  limited  quantities 
and  at  such  an  exorbitant  price  as  to  make  the  fortunate 
possessors  of  wealth  and  cunning  the  masters  of  society, 
and  the}'",  in  turn,  become  the  oppressors.  In  the  very  na- 
ture of  human  wants  and  in  tlie  vast  variety  of  climate 
and  soil,  widely  separated  and  yet  inhabited  by  kindred 
beings,  each  having  physical  wants  which  his  own  locality 
cannot  fully  supply,  nature  seems  to  have  suggested  aloud 
through  all  ages  and  to  all  men,  the  necessity  for  frater- 
nity and  adequate  facilities  for  mutual  exchange.  The  cur- 
rents of  atmosphere  sigh  for  sails  to  fill ;  the  'streams 
stretch  inland  from  the  sea ;  the  frozen  reservoirs  of  the 
mountains  melt  and  leap  down  the  ruggid  precipice  and 


KOME,    BRITAIN    AND   THE    UNITED    STATES.  271 

"join  the  brimming  river,"  to  construct  a  floating  hiorhway 
for  man.  The  ebb  and  flow  of  tides  beckon  us  to  adven- 
ture and  allure  us  to  return.  Nature  would  seem  to  fur- 
ther suggest  that  as  men  are  numerous  and  prone  to 
increase,  and  as  the  earth  is  bountiful  in  its  provisions  tc 
meeli  the  wants  of  human,  and  indeed  of  all  animal  life, 
mankind  should  also  be  quick  to  supply  themselves  with 
abundant  facilities  for  exchanging  and  transporting  these 
bounties.  Without  such  provisions,  production,  in  a  great 
measure,  is  vain,  proper  distribution  impossible,  and  the 
concentration  of  wealth  in  the  hands  of  the  few  inevitable. 
Only  the  wealthy  can  aft'ord  to  hold  these  products  in  large 
quantities  to  await  distribution.  It  is  under  such  condi- 
tions that  the  rich  and  powerful,  taking  advantage  of  the 
helplessness  of  the  people,  commit  the  great  crime  of  all 
ages,  the  usurpation  of  the  soil.  Then  in  a  brief  period 
the  unfortunate  and  weak  are  deprived  of  a  foothold  upon 
the  earth,  and  soon  the  social  structure  topples  to  its  fall 
to  await  reconstruction.  Injustice  of  this  character  led  to 
the  downfall  of  every  nation  of  antiquity;  but  neither  the 
productive  energy  of  the  earth  nor  the  industry  of  its  in. 
habitants  have  been  at  fault.  The  difficulty  has  ever 
been  with  vicious  and  defective  systems,  alike  hostile  to 
the  necessities  of  the  race  and  the  bounties  of  nature. 
Nations  which  persist  in  degrading  and  enslaving  labor 
always  perish.  Society  and  the  whole  framework  of  civil 
government  are  built  upon  labor,  nor  could  the  State  exist 
in  peace  for  a  single  year  without  its  sustaining  power. 
Impoverish  labor  and  you  imperil  the  whole  structure  of 
society.  Nay,  more,  you  plant  the  seeds  of  decay,  from 
which  you  must  speedily  reap  a  harvest  of  death.  Men 
will  voluntarily  defend  that  which  they  love  and  cherish. 
But  as  soon  as  they  learn  that  their  government  is  a  rob- 
ber, or,  that  it  protects  privileged  classes  in  robbing  the 


272  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

many,  and  that  there  is  no  escape  from  tliis  glaring  in- 
justice, that  moment  patriotism  is  transformed  into  rebel- 
lion and  sedition  takes  the  place  of  public  tranquility. 
Such  were  the  results  in  Rome  in  the  days  of  her  greatest 
power.  Such  will  be  the  sequel  in  America  if  we  longer 
refuse  to  recognize  the  perils  of  our  situation. 

"During  the  entire  ages  of  Trajan  and  the  Antonines,'' 
says  Sismondi,  "  a  succession  of  virtuous  and  philosophic 
emperors  followed  each  other;  the  world  was  at  peace;  the 
laws  were  wise  and  well  administered;  riches  seemed  to 
increase;  each  succeeding  generation  raised  palaces  more 
splendid,  monuments  and  public  edifices  more  sumptuous 
than  the  preceding;  the  senatorial  families  found  their  reve- 
nues increased;  the  treasury  levied  greater  imposts;  increas- 
ing opulence  continued  to  meet  the  eye,  but  man  became 
more  miserable;  the  rural  population,  formerly  active,  ro- 
bust and  energetic,  were  succeeded  by  a  foreign  race;  while 
the  inhabitants  of  towns  sank  in  vice  and  idleness,  or  per- 
ished in  want  amidst  the  riches  they  had  themselves  created. 
It  is  not  on  the  mass  of  wealth,  it  is  on  its  distribution  that 
the  prosperity  of  States  depends." 

The  historian  then  proceeds  to  show  the  deadly  results 
of  colossal  individual  fortunes: 

"During  the  long  peace  which  followed  the  victories  of 
Trajan  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  those  colossal  fortunes  were 
accumulated,  which,  according  to  Pliny,  ruined  Italy  and 
the  Empire.  A  single  proprietor  by  degrees  came  to  buy 
up  whole  provinces,  the  conquest  of  which  had  in  former 
times  furnished  the  occasion  of  many  triumphs  of  the  gen- 
erals of  the  republic.  While  this  huge  capitalist  was 
amassing  riches  wholly  disproportionate  to  the  wants  of 
man,  the  once  numerous  and  respectable  but  now  beggared 
middle  class  disappeared  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  In 
districts  where  so  many  brave  and  industrious  citizens  were 
to  be  seen  in  former  times,  alike  ready  to  defend  or  culti- 
vate their  fields,  were  found  to  be  nothing  but  slaves  who 


EOME,    BRITAIN    AND   THE   UNITED    STATES.  273 

rapidly  declined  in  number  as  the  fields  came  to  be  exclu- 
sively devoted  to  pasturage.  The  fertile  plains  of  Italy 
ceased  to  nourish  its  inhabitants;  Rome  depended  entirely 
for  its  subsistence  on  the  harvest  which  its  fleets  broucrht 
from  Cicily,  Africa  and  Egypt.  From  the  Capital  to  the 
farthest  extremity  of  the  provinces,  depopulation  and 
misery  in  the  country  co-existed  with  enormous  wealth  in 
the  towns.  From  this  cause  the  impossibility  of  recruiting 
the  legions  with  native  Romans  was  experienced  even  in 
the  time  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  In  his  war  against  the  Quadi 
and  Marcommani,  which  had  been  preceded  by  a  long 
peace,  he  was  obliged  to  recruit  the  legions  with  the  slaves 
and  robbers  of  Rome.  It  is  impossible  to  give  stronger 
proof  of  the  extent  to  which  the  enormous  evil  of  the  vast 
fortunes  accumulated  in  the  towns,  and  the  entire  ruin  of 
industry  in  the  country,  had  gone  in  the  last  days  of  the 
empire,  than  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact,  that  when  Rome  was 
taken  by  Alaric,  in  the  year  4:0i  (i-10)  after  Christ,  while 
Italy  could  furnish  no  force  to  resist  the  invaders,  the  capi- 
tal itself  contained  1,760  families,  many  of  them  with  in- 
comes of  £160,000  a  year,  equal  to  £300,000  of  our  money, 
whose  expenditures  maintained  an  urban  population  of 
1,200,000  souls." 

In  describing  the  same  scenes  of  desolation  the  French 
Historian,  Michelet,  says: 

"The  Christian  emperors  could  not  remedy  the  growing 
depopulation  of  the  country  any  more  than  their  heathen 
predesessors.  All  their  efforts  only  showed  the  impotence 
of  Government  to  arrest  that  dreadful  evil.  Sometimes 
alarmed  at  the  depopulation,  they  tried  to  mitigate  the  lot 
of  the  farmer,  and  shield  him  against  the  landlord;  upon 
this  the  proprietor  exclaimed  he  could  no  longer  pay  the 
taxes.  At  other  times  they  abandoned  the  farmer,  sur- 
rendered him  to  the  landlord,  and  strove  to  chain  him  to 
the  soil;  but  the  unhappy  cultivator  perished  or  fled,  and 
the  land  became  deserted.  Even  in  the  time  of  Augustus, 
efforts  were  made  to  arrest  the  depopulation  at  tlie  expense 
of  morals,  by  encouraging  concubinage.  Pertinax  granted 
immunity  from  taxes  to  those  who  would  occupy  the  desert 

18 


274  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

lands  of  Italy;  to  the  cultivators  of  distant  provinces  and 
to  the  allied  kings.  Aurelian^did  the  same.  Probus  was 
obliged  to  transport  from  Germany  men  and  oxen  to  culti- 
vate Gaul;  Maximan  and  Constantius  transported  the 
Franks  and  the  Germans  from  Picardy  and  Hainault  into 
Italy;  but  depopulation  in  towns  and  country  continued. 
The  people  gave  themselves  up  to  despair  in  the  fields,  as 
a  beast  of  burden  lies  down  beneath  his  load  and  refuses  to 
rise.  In  vain  the  emperor  strove  by  offers  of  immunities 
and  exemptions,  to  recall  the  cultivators  to  their  deserted 
fields.  Nothing  could  induce  tliem  to  do  so.  The  desert 
extended  daily.  At  the  commencement  of  the  fifth  century 
there  were  in  Happy  Campania,  the  most  fertile  province 
of  the  empire,  520,000  jugera  (320,000  acres)  in  a  state  of 
nature." 

After  searching  history  for  the  cause  of  this  desolation, 
Gibbon  says:  "As  the  footsteps  of  the  barbarians  had  not 
yet  been  seen  in  Italy,  the  cause  of  this  amazing  devasta- 
tion, which  is  recorded  in  the  laws  (0.  O.  D.  Theod.  I. 
XI  B .  38,  C  2)  can  be  ascribed  only  to  the  administration 
of  the  Koman  emperors."  Here  is  a  picture  with  such 
familiar  face  as  to  be  mistaken,  were  it  not  for  the  names, 
as  a  bit  of  current  history  taken  from  every  day  American 
life.  Brutus,  when  he  was  pro-consul  of  Cicily,  loaned 
money  at  60^  interest.  The  contrast  in  the  home  life  of 
the  borrower  and  the  lender  may  readily  be  imagined .  In 
that  day,  as  in  this,  men  of  large  estates  frequently  ex- 
pended immense  sums  in  commendable  public  enterprises. 
Agrippa  built  the  pantheon  at  his  own  expense  and  supplied 
Rome  with  a  hundred  fountains  and  adorned  them  with 
stately  carved  columns  and  statuary  "The  nobles  of 
Home,"  says  Gibbon,  "were  more  tenacious  of  property 
than  of  freedom." 

Lord  Macauley  speaking  of  the  economic  situation  in 
Home,  says: 


ROME,    BRITAIN   AND   THE   UNITED    STATES.  275 


"The  ruling  class  was  a  monied  class;  and  it  made  and 
administered  the  laws  solely  to  its  own  interest.  Thus  the 
relation  between  the  lender  and  the  borrower  was  mixed 
up  with  the  relations  between  Sovereign  and  subject.  The 
great  men  held  a  great  portion  of  the  community  in 
dependence  by  means  of  advances  at  enormous  interest. 
The  law  of  debt  framed  by  the  creditors,  and  for  the  pro- 
tection of  creditors,  was  the  most  horrible  known  among 
men.  The  liberty,  and  even  the  life,  of  the  insolvent  were 
at  the  mercy  of  the  patrician  money  lenders." 

About  the  close  of  the  second  century  the  pretorian 
band,  numbering  less  than  15,000  men,  had  Rome  com- 
pletely at  their  mercy.  When  the  emperor  Pertinax 
undertook  to  correct  the  abuses  which  had  grown  up  under 
the  infamous  Commodus,  he  was  beheaded  by  the  pre- 
torians.  His  father-in-law  aspired  to  the  throne.  Fearing 
the  fierce  murderers  of  the  emperor,  he  offered  to  treat  for 
the  imperial  dignity.  This  had  only  the  effect  to  whet  the 
avarice  of  the  soldiers  and  they  immediately  ran  out  on 
the  ramparts  and  proclaimed  that  the  empire  was  to  be 
sold  at  public  auction  to  the  highest  bidder.  Didius  Jul- 
ianus,  a  wealthy  Senator,  yielding  to  the  persuasions  of  his 
family,  hastened  to  the  pretorian  camps,  took  his  position 
at  the  foot  of  the  ramparts  and  began  to  bid  against  Sulp- 
icianus,  the  father-in-law  of  the  late  emperor.  Faithful 
messengers  passed  from  one  candidate  to  the  other  and 
acquainted  each  of  the  others  bid.  Sulpicianus  offered  a 
hundred  and  sixty  pounds  to  each  soldier.  Julianus  at 
once  offered  upwards  of  two  hundred  pounds  sterling  and 
immediately  the  gates  of  the  camp  were  thrown  open  to 
the  purchaser.  He  was  declared  emperor  and  received 
the  oath  of  allegiance  from  the  soldiers.  After  a  brief 
and  bloody  reign  of  sixty  days,  he  was  himself  overthrown 
and  beheaded  at  the  order  of  Severus  who,  at  the  urgent 
solicitation  of  the  Roman  people,  had  collected  an  armv 


276  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

for  the  purpose  of  avenging  the  murder  of  Pertinax  and 
to  assert  the  violated  majesty  of  the  empire. 

This  conqueror  disarmed  the  pretorians,  decreed  that 
none  of  them  should  live  nearer  than  one  hundred  miles  of 
the  capital,  and  put  forty-one  senators  to  death  who  had 
acknowledged  the  purchased  authority  of  Julianus.  About 
the  close  of  the  second  century  Oleander  was  prime  minis- 
ter of  the  Emperor  Commodus.  Gibbon,  in  his  Decline 
and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  says  of  him: 

"Avarice  was  the  main  passion  of  his  soul,  and  the 
great  principle  of  his  administration.  The  rank  of  consul, 
of  patrician,  of  Senator  was  exposed  to  public  sale;  and  it 
would  have  been  considered  as  disaffection,  if  any  one 
had  refused  to  purchase  these  empty  and  disgraceful 
honors  with  the  greatest  part  of  his  fortune.  In  the  lucra- 
tive provencial  employments  the  minister  shared  with  the 
governor  the  spoils  of  the  people.  The  execution  of  the 
laws  was  venal  and  arbitrary.  A  wealthy  criminal  might 
obtain,  not  only  the  reversal  of  the  sentence  by  which  he 
was  justly  condemned,  but  might  likewise  inflict  whatever 
punishment  he  pleased  on  the  kcciisor,  the  witnesses  and 
the  judge.  *  *  *  -Jq  divert  the  public  envy, 
Oleander,  under  the  emperor's  name,  erected  baths,  porti- 
cos, and  places  of  exercise,  for  the  use  of  the  people." 

It  was  the  boast  of  Augustus  that  he  found  the  capital 
of  brick  and  left  it  of  marble;  yet  the  visible  accumulations 
of  increasing  wealth  did  not  inure  to  the  relief  of  the  poor. 

For  centuries  prior  to  the  fall,  money  was  exceedingly- 
scarce  among  the  people.  The  oath  required  of  every  tax- 
payer was  so  strict  and  the  penalties  accompanying  its 
violation  so  extreme,  as  to  render  concealment  by  the  pri- 
vate citizens  more  dangerous  than  disclosure.  When  it 
became  known  that  an  individual  was  possessed  of  any 
considerable  quantity  of  treasure,  it  was  in  some  way  made 
tributary  to  the  royal  exchequer.  The  tillers  of  the  soil 
had  neither  money,  adequate  facilities  for  transportation 


BOME,    BRITAIN    AND    THE    UNITED    STATES.  277 

nor  medium  of  inter-communication.  If  want  existed  in 
one  province  and  a  surplus  in  another,  there  was  no  suffi- 
cient and  speedy  method  of  bringina:  the  two  extremes 
together.  The  farmers  were  poor  and  in  times  of  plenty 
the  fortunate  possessors  of  wealth  purchased  the  supplies 
at  ruinously  low  prices,  stored  them  in  warehouses  and 
awaited  the  time  of  scarcity.  In  the  purchase  they 
robbed  the  producer.  When  scarcity  came  they  extorted 
exorbitant  prices  from  the  consumer.  The  senators  who 
possessed  lands  connived  at  and  openly  engaged  in  specu- 
lations in  the  necessaries  of  life.  The  Emperor  Julian 
reproached  them  for  this,  and  on  one  occasion  imprisoned 
above  two  hundred  of  them  for  a  short  time,  on  the  charge 
of  having  sacrificed  the  public  welfare  to  private  interest. 

By  imperial  decree  he  enacted  that  in  time  of  scarcity 
grain  should  be  sold  at  a  price  below  what  it  brought  in 
years  of  plenty.  He  then  sent  into  the  markets  422,000 
measures  of  imperial  wheat  which  was  sold  at  the  minimum 
price.  The  rich  bought  it  up  and  withheld  the  supplies. 
The  small  quantity  which  appeared  on  sale  was  secretly 
disposed  of  to  the  consumers  at  famine  prices.  This  crime 
has  cursed  the  world  through  all  ages,  and  the  civilization 
of  our  own  period  is  grappling  with  this  ancient  enemy  of 
the  race. 

At  this  era  taxes,  for  the  most  part,  were  payable  in  gold 
coin,  the  only  kind  of  money  which  could  be  legally  ac- 
cepted. The  remainder  of  the  tribute  was  pa3^able  in  kind, 
such  as  wine  or  oil,  corn  or  barley,  wood  or  iron,  and  the 
laws  for  the  collection  of  every  species  of  tax  were  severely 
distressing  and  cruel.  To  use  the  language  of  Gibbon, 
the  system  of  taxation  "fell  like  a  hail-storm  upon  the  land, 
like  a  devouring  pestilence  upon  its  inhabitants."  There 
was  a  personal  tribute  laid  upon  the  industry  of  the  poor 


278  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

called  the  "Gold  of  affliction."  It  was  abolished  by  An- 
astasius  amid  the  rejoicing  of  the  people. 

But  seasons  of  reform  were  of  short  duration  and  invari- 
ably followed  by  oppression  and  constant  disorder.  Sunshine 
and  tempest,  tranquiUty  and  tumult,  private  accumulation 
and  public  spoliation  followed  each  other  in  such  quick  suc- 
cession that  human  nature  became  exhausted,  hope  perished 
and  constructive  effort  ceased.  The  acquisitions  of  industry 
only  invited  the  vicious  to  plunder  and  even  the  loving  kind, 
ness  of  the  gospel  was  scoffed  at  as  the  code  of  hypocrisy 
and  cowardice.  Man  could  do  no  more.  The  Nation  stood 
facing  its  sepulcher.  There  was  nothing  left  for  it  but 
death,  mitigated  by  the  reflection  that  when  nations  die 
accursed  of  God  and  man  there  is  for  them  no  resurrection. 

At  the  period  of  the  fall  of  the  Western  Eoman  Empire, 
its  authority  extended  over  the  territory  now  occupied  by 
the  following  states  among  others: 

Square  miles. 

Italy 114,380 

Spain 198,171 

Portugal. 34,595 

France 204,030 

Germany 208,624 

Great  Britain  and  Ireland 121,571 

Total 881,371 

But  this  includes  mountains,  lakes,  streams,  cities, 
marshes,  and  all  other  varieties  of  untillable  area.  We 
must  deduct  therefore  from  this  total  one-third  at  least  in 
order  to  ascertain  approximately  the  tillable  land  in  the 
countries  named.  This  will  leave  us  587,000  square  miles, 
in  round  numbers. 

It  will  be  conceded,  doubtless,  that  nature  in  the  creation 
of  this  vast  area  of  fertile  land  suited  for  the  abode  of  man, 
did    not    accompany  the    gift  with  a  law   whicli  should 


KOME,    BRITAIN   AND   THE   UNITED    STATES.  279 

cause  the  wealth  resulting  from  its  cultivation  to  flow  into 
the  hands  of  a  few  idlers.  It  would  be  blasphemous  to  so 
conclude.  Man  alone  is  responsible  for  this  stupendous 
crime,  wherever  it  is  found  to  exist. 

The  fatal  malady  spoken  of  by  the  historians  quoted  did 
not  stop  with  the  death  of  the  Roman  Empire.  It  has 
remained  like  a  leprosy  to  curse  all  the  nations  of  the  old 
world,  and  the  virus  has  inocculated  all  peoples. 

Like  a  dreadful  scrofula  it  has  been  transmitted 
from  generation  to  generation  and  from  age  to  age.  It  is 
sickening  to  contemplate  the  sufferings  of  the  countless 
millions  of  human  beings  who  have  lived  in  abject  want 
and  died  in  helpless  poverty  within  the  kingdoms  of  the 
old  world.  Surrounded  with  abundance  of  food  on  every 
hand  which  they  themselves  created,  they  were  doomed 
to  starve.  With  material  in  sight  suflScient  to  comfortably 
cl;>Uie  the  world  they  were  forced  to  shiver  naked  in  the 
coJd.  With  supplies  on  every  hand  sufficient  to  shelter  all 
ma.  1  Kind  they  were  condemned  by  inhuman  laws  and  devil- 
ish economic  s^'^etems  to  herd  together  like  cattle,  without 
shelter,  homeless  upon  the  earth.  When  laws  become  so 
vicious  that  the  generous  earth  can  no  longer  supply  the 
wants  of  man  and  he  is  forced,  in  order  to  keep  soul  and 
body  together  to  sell  the  planet  on  which  he  lives,  it  must 
be  conceded  that  his  condition  is  most  miserable  and  the 
tyranny  under  which  he  is  forced  to  live  most  complete. 

In  a  work  published  in  England  by  Mr.  Williams,  in 
1875,  it  is  stated  that  "The  larger  portion  of  the  land  in 
the  kingdom  is  at  present  in  mortgage,"  and  it  is  estimated 
by  competent  authority  at  present  that  three-fourths  of  the 
land  is  mortgaged.  Germany  and  Holland  are  similarl}"" 
situated.  In  Italy  mortgages  are  entirely  out  of  proportion 
to  value.  Cuba  is  so  heavily  in  debt  that  her  people,  al- 
tliough  blessed  with  the  richest  soil  on  earth  and  the  mildest 


280  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

climate,  are  giving  up  in  despair  and  resorting  to  brigand- 
age. Five-sixths  of  the  property  of  Ceylon  is  pledged  be- 
yond its  value.  Egypt,  India,  Syria,  Asia  Minor  and  a  score 
of  other  states  have  sunken  hopelessly  under  the  servitude 
of  debt.  The  reports  of  American  consuls  concerning  for- 
eign mortgages,  made  to  the  Secretary  of  State  in  the  year 
1889,  give  the  reader  a  succinct  view  of  the  mortgage 
curse  of  the  world.  They  show  that  every  nation,  from  the 
weakest  to  the  most  powerful,  is  carrying  a  load  of  indi- 
vidual indebtedness  which  is  crushing  out  the  hope,  energy 
and  the  very  life  of  mankind.  They  prove  that  usury  is 
eating  up  the  race  and  beggering  universal  society. 

The  estimate  of  foreign  debts,  it  must  be  remembered, 
do  not  include  corporate,  municipal  and  provincinal  in- 
debtedness which  serve  to  make  the  situation  in  the  Old 
World  still  more  alarming.  As  might  be  expected,  valua- 
tions decreased  between  1870  and  1880,  from  eighty  to 
seventy-eight  parts,  while  public  and  private  debt  increased 
enormously.  Productive  earnings  sunk  during  the  same 
period  from  seventy-five  to  seventy-three  parts,  while  taxa- 
tion rose  from  seventy-six  to  eighty  parts.  The  situation 
of  the  human  race  in  that  part  of  the  world,  under  present 
systems,  seems  well-nigh  hopeless.  Impoverished,  dis- 
armed, helpless,  held  in  subjection  by  enormous  standing 
armies,  even  the  power  to  rebel  is  taken  away.  The  state 
is  armed  and  the  citizen  disarmed.  The  only  alternative 
left  is  the  possibility  of  escaping  to  some  other  country 
where  the  laws  and  conditions  are  more  humane.  This  ac- 
counts for  the  restless  tide  of  immigration  constantly  rising 
on  our  shores — a  tide  that  ever  flows  but  never  ebbs. 

But  what  is  the  situation  in  our  own  beloved 

AMERICA  ? 

The  Roman  Empire  had  been  in  its  tomb  more  than  four- 
teen hundred  years  when  our  nation  was  born.     But  it 


ROME,    BRITAIN   AND    THE   UNITED    STATES.  281 

should  ever  be  remembered  that  man  cannot  get  away  from 
his  own  type,  and  that  like  causes  will  produce  like  effects 
in  all  ages  and  among  all  peoples. 

Does  the  young  but  great  Republic  hold  out  any  hope  to 
mankind  ?  Are  we  still  a  beacon  light,  or  has  our  lamp 
so  soon  grown  dim  ?  Are  we  still  an  asylum  for  the  op- 
pressed of  all  nations,  or  are  we  about  to  become  a  police- 
man for  the  monarchs  and  despots  of  the  old  world — a 
despicable,  international  slave-catcher,  under  a  world-wide 
fugitive  slave  law — engaged  in  the  business  of  arresting 
and  returning  to  their  cruel  task-masters  the  poor  slaves 
who  are  fleeing  hither  to  become  citizens  and  to  escape 
from  hopeless  conditions  ?  We  blush  to  think  that  the 
events  of  a  single  century  under  our  own  unobstructed 
administration,  have  relieved  the  reign  of  George  III.  from 
at  least  one  aspersion  contained  in  our  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, namely:  the  charge  of  "obstructing  the  laws  for 
the  naturalization  of  foreisfners;  refusing  to  pass  others  to 
encourage  their  migration  hither." 

We  are  but  an  infant  among  the  nations,  but  we  have 
inherited  a  large  estate.  Our  country  is  sparsely  popu- 
lated; we  have  hundreds  of  millions  of  acres  of  fertile  soil 
which  have  never  felt  the  energy  of  the  plowshare  nor 
yielded  a  single  grain  for  the  sustenance  of  man,  and  yet 
we  are  complaining  of  immigration! 

England  has  420  inhabitants  to  the  square  mile,  New 
York  has  about  130,  Massachusetts,  exceptionally  popu- 
lous, has  about  220,  Belgium  has  450  to  the  square  mile, 
JLLer  territory  is  about  the  size  ot  the  state  of  Maryland,  but 
her  population  outnumbers  the  latter  nearly  five  to  one.  If 
Ohio  were  peopled  as  densely  as  Belgium,  she  would  con- 
tain 20,000,000  people  and  Illinois  would  contain  24,000,000. 
Iowa  would  contain  over  21,000,000.  If  our  whole  coun- 
try were  peopled  like  Belgium,  we  would  number  more 


282  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

than  1,400,000,000  souls,  or  a  greater  population  thaa  row 
lives  upon  the  whole  globe! 

PKODUCTIVE  POWER  OF  OUK  COUNTKT. 

We  find  the  following  astonishing,  yet  nevertheless  reli- 
able, statements  in  a  speech  delivered  by  the  late  Samuel 
S.  Cox,  in  the  Fiftieth  Congress,  upon  the  bill  providing 
for  taking  the  eleventh  census: 

•'The  land  in  actual  use  for  growing  maize  or  Indian 
corn,  wheat,  hay,  oats,  and  cotton  in  the  whole  country 
now  consists  of  272, 500  square  miles,  or  a  little  more  than 
the  area  of  the  single  state  of  Texas. 

"The  entire  wheat  crop  of  the  United  States  could  be 
grown  on  wheat  land  of  the  best  quality  selected  from  that 
part  of  the  area  of  the  state  of  Texas  by  which  that  single 
State  exceeds  the  present  area  of  the  German  Empire. 

"The  cotton  factories  of  the  world  now  require  about 
12,000,000  bales  of  cotton  of  American  weight.  Good 
land  in  Texas  produces  one  bale  to  an  acre.  The  world's 
supply  of  cotton  could  therefore  be  grown  on  less  than 
19,000  square  miles,  or  upon  an  area  equal  to  only  7  per 
cent  of  the  area  of  Texas." 

How  completely  do  these  statements  and  figures  demon- 
strate the  truth  that  our  economic  troubles  are  the  result  of 
puereile  and  vicious  systems — systems  born  of  avarice  and 
upheld  for  plunder. 

What  has  become  of  our  Christianity?  There  is  certainly 
room  and  to  spare,  at  our  table.  The  laws  which  govern 
the  reproduction  of  our  race  are  not  at  fault.  The  world  is 
impatient  for  an  explanation  and  our  dilema  must  be 
quickly  interpreted. 

A  century  of  experiment  has  shown  that  our  economic 
system  is  utterly  unsuited  to  an  increasing  population,  to 
the  unerring  laws  of  nature  and^to  the  fundamental  wants 
of  the  human  race.  Think  of  the  barbaric  savagery  of  a 
system  which  permits  a  single  generation  to  appropriate 


KOMEj    BRITAIN    AND   THE   UNITED    STATES.  283 

to  itself  the  whole  planet  upon  which  it  lives,  in  defraud 
of  all  who  are  to  come  after  them!  Is  it  any  wonder  that 
we  hear  of  conflicts  between  capital  and  labor?  Of  con- 
flicts between  those  who  have  appropriated  the  earth  and 
those  who  have  been  excluded  from  its  occupancy  and  its 
blessings  ?  We  may  be  mistaken,  but  if  we  know  anything 
of  the  laws  which  govern  human  nature  and  which  must 
at  last  find  vent  and  expression,  the  difliculties  which  now 
exist  in  our  country  and  which  are  daily  manifesting  them- 
selves in  strikes,  lock-outs  and  incipient  riots,  are  simply 
the  picket  tiring  which  precedes  the  general  conflict,  if  the 
people  of  America  refuse  much  longer  to  listen  to  the 
voice  of  reason.  If  the  troubles  of  to-day  are  serious, 
what  will  be  our  peril  twenty  years  from  now  with  our 
population  grown  to  a  hundred  millions?  Society  calls 
aloud  for  readjustment  and  it  must  come  speedily.  The 
promptings  of  duty,  the  voice  of  justice  and  the  ties  of 
consanguinity  unite  in  a  three-fold  persuasion  to  urge  us  to 
enter  at  once  upon  the  work  before  it  shall  be  unalterably 
too  late. 

The  child,  who  is  born  while  we  are  penning  these 
thoughts,  comes  into  this  world  clothed  with  all  the  natural 
rights  which  Adam  possessed  when  he  was  the  sole  inhab- 
itant of  the  earth.  Liberty  to  occupy  the  soil  in  his  own 
right,  to  till  it  unmolested  as  soon  as  he  has  the  strength 
to  do  so  and  to  live  upon  the  fruits  of  his  toil  without  pay- 
ing tribute  to  any  other  creature,  are  among  the  most 
sacred  and  essential  of  these  rights;  and  any  state  of 
society  which  deprives  men  of  these  natural  and  inalien- 
able safeguards,  is  an  organized  rebellion  against  the  prov- 
idence of  God,  a  conspiracy  against  human  life  and  a 
menace  to  the  peace  of  the  community.  When  complete 
readjustment  shall  come,  as  come  it  must  quickly,  it  will 
proceed  in  accordance  with  this  fundamental  truth.     The 


284 


A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 


stone  which  the  builders  rejected  will  then  become  the  head 
of  the  corner. 

But  let  us  see  if  we  are  not  travelins^  with  frightful  ve- 
locity along  the  same  road  which  led  Rome  to  the  grave. 
It  is  true  that  our  chief  magistracy  has  never  yet  been  sold 
at  public  auction;  but  does  any  one  doubt  that  it  has  fre- 
quently, of  late  years,  been  purchased  at  private  sale? 
The  enormous  campaign  assessments,  personal  contribu- 
tions and  wholesale  disbursements  which  have  characterized 
the  presidential  contests  of  late  years  leave  little  room  for 
either  doubt  or  apology,  and  they  do  not  fall  far  short  of 
open  and  avowed  purchase.  A  seat  in  the  United  States 
Senate  is  now  rarely  secured  except  by  the  corrupt  use  of 
money  and  none  but  the  wealthy  need  apply.  It  is  an  open 
secret  that  official  positions,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest 
in  all  the  states  and  municipalities  are  often  captured  by  an 
expenditure  of  money  largely  in  excess  of  the  stated  emol- 
uments of  the  office.  It  is  well-known  to  all  who  are 
familiar  with  public  life  that  there  has  not  been  a  single 
session  of  Congress  within  a  quarter  of  a  century  which 
has  been  free  from  formidable  schemes  of  jobbery — 
schemes  looking  either  to  the  inauguration  of  new  systems 
of  plunder  or  the  consummation  of  old  ones.  Our  state  leg- 
islatures are  universally  beset  by  formidable  lobbies  which 
either  represent  those  who  are  seeking  some  new  grant  of 
power,  or  the  beneficiaries  of  former  vicious  legislation 
who  are  now  anxious  that  "vested  rights"  shall  not  be  dis- 
turbed. 

A  prominent  Pennsylvania  gentleman,  long  familiar  with 
public  affairs  in  that  State,  says:  Inside  of  seven  years 
the  Standard  Oil  Trust  spent  $325,000  at  Harrisburg.  In 
five  years  it  spent  over  $60,000  in  Columbus;  at  Albany, 
but  covering  different  years,  $35,000 — for  what?  Has  the 
reader  any  doubt?     Not  a  single  legislative  session  passes 


KOME,    BKITAIN    AND   THE   UNITED    STATES.  285 

in  any  of  the  states  where  this  crime  is  not  substantially 
committed  over  and  over  again,  from  year  to  year,  by  the 
various  classes  of  corporations  and  their  agents. 

LANDED   ESTATES. 

The  immense  landed  estates  of  I3ritain  had  their  origin 
in  the  vast  grants  made  by  William  the  Norman,  to  his 
military  chieftains  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eleventh  century. 
But  the  overthrow  of  the  feudal  system  established  by  the 
conqueror  has  not  resulted  in  parceling  out  the  great  landed 
estates.  On  the  contrary  the  tendency  in  modern  times  is 
toward  enlargement  of  such  holdings.  Tyrants  have 
alwa3^s  understood  that  if  nations  are  to  be  enslaved  the 
people  must  first  be  robbed  of  all  title  to  their  homes. 
When  the  feudal  system  was  broken  up  it  seemed  that  the 
land  was  about  to  be  divided  into  small  tracts  henceforth 
to  be  cultivated  by  an  independent,  thrifty  people.  The 
hope  proved  illusive.  Tyranny  simply  fell  back  on  a 
stronger  line  of  defense  against  popular  aggression — the 
permanent  impoverishment  of  labor  enforced  through  a 
restricted  circulating  medium,  and  the  control  of  the  other 
great  agencies  of  commerce.  The  right  to  accquire  a  free- 
hold was  acknowledged,  but  the  power  to  acquire  it  was 
withheld.  So  solicitious  are  civilized  men  to  acquire  homes 
of  their  own  upon  the  earth,  that  in  every  period  of  indus- 
trial prosperity  in  Great  Britain,  the  number  of  small 
holdings  have  invariably  increased;  but  alas,  with  every 
reverse  they  have  again  diminished.  To-day  the  people 
of  Britain  are  fenced  out  from  millions  of  acres  of  uncul- 
tivated land  as  we  in  the  west  were  wont  to  fence  out  our 
cattle  from  cultivated  fields  in  early  dajs.  Mr.  John 
Bright  a  few  years  ago  declared  that  nine  hundred  and 
thirty-five  persons  owned  twenty-three  million  acres  in  the 
United   Kingdom.     The  Duke   of  Bread elbane   drives   a 


386  A   CALL   TO   ACTIOHf. 

hundred  miles  in  direct  line  on  his  own  land.  Tne  Duke 
of  Southerland  owns  the  whole  of  the  county  of  SoutJier- 
land,  comprismg  about  eighteen  hundred  square  miles. 
Mr.  Wallace  Bruce,  United  States  Counsel  at  Lei*^h,  in  his 
report  to  the  Secretary  of  State,  December,  1890,  says  that 
four  million  eight  hundred  and  forty-three  thousand  acres 
of  farm  land  in  England  are  cultivated  by  tenants.  This 
condition  is  still  more  marked  in  Ireland  and  Scotland.  But 
we  shall  have  something  further  to  say  upon  land  titles  in 
England  in  our  chapter  on  the  effect  of  our  financial  system 
on  land  ownership.' 

But  the  curse  of  land  monopoly  is  increasing  in  our 
own  country  in  an  alarming  ratio. 

The  Committee  on  the  Judiciary  in  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, for  the  Fifty-first  Congress,  was  charged  with 
the  duty  of  investigating  the  extent  of  alien  land  ownership 
in  the  United  States.  They  made  a  report  (No.  2388) 
during  the  first  session  of  that  Congress.     They  say: 

"Your  committee  have  ascertained,  with  reasonable 
certainty,  that  certain  noblemen  of  Europe — principally 
Englishmen — have  acquired  and  now  own  in  the  aggregate 
about  21,000,000  acres  of  land  within  the  United  States. 
We  have  not  sufficient  information  to  state  the  quantity 
owned  by  untitled  aliens,  nor  is  it  so  important,  as  it  is 
generally  held  in  smaller  bodies.  This  alien  non-resident 
ownership  will,  in  the  course  of  time,  lead  to  a  system  of 
landlordism  incompatible  with  the  best  interests  and  free 
institutions  of  the  United  States.  The  foundation  of  such 
a  system  is  being  laid  broadly  in  the  Western  States  and 
Territories.  A  considerable  number  of  the  immigrants 
annually  arriving  in  this  country  are  to  become  tenants 
and  herdsmen  on  the  vast  possessions  of  these  foreign 
lords,  under  contracts  made  and  entered  into  before  they 
sail  for  our  shores. 

"The  avarice  and  enterprise  of  European  capitalists  have 
caused  them  to  invest  in  American  railroads  and  land 
bonds,   covering  perhaps  one  hundred  million  acres,  the 


KOME,    BRITAIN   AND    THE   UNITED    STATES.  287 

great  part  of  which,  under  foreclosure  sales,  will  most 
likely  before  many  years,  become  the  property  of  these 
foreign  bondholders,  in  addition  to  their  present  princely 
possessions.  It  is  thus  manifest  that  if  the  present  large 
alien  ownership  is  an  evil,  of  which  we  have  no  doubt,  the 
probabihties  of  the  near  future  will  still  more  imperatively 
demand  legislation  for  its  prevention.  This  aggressive 
foreign  capital  is  not  confined  to  lands  it  has  purchased, 
but,  overleaping  its  boundaries,  has  caused  hundreds  of 
miles  of  public  domain  to  be  fenced  up  for  the  grazing  of 
vast  herds  of  cattle  and  set  at  defiance  the  rights  of  the 
honest  but  humble  settler. " 

The  committee  further  report  that  Mr.  ScuUey,  who 
resides  in  England  and  is  a  subject  of  the  Queen,  owns 
ninety  thousand  acres  of  land  in  the  State  of  Illinois,  occu- 
pied by  hundreds  of  tenants,  mostly  ignorant  foreigners, 
from  whom  he  receives,  as  rent,  $200,000  per  annum,  and 
expends  it  in  Europe.  The  Scheuley  estate,  consisting  of 
about  two  thousand  acres  within  the  city  limits  of  Pitts 
burgh  and  Alleghany,  from  the  rents  of  which  the  Scheu- 
leys,  who  are  subject  to  the  British  Queen,  draw  annually 
not  less  than  $100,000,  is  another  remarkable  instance. 
The  committee  then  very  pertinently  remark  that  "No 
other  Nation  in  the  world  allows  the  subjects  of  other  Gov- 
ernments to  acquire  such  possessions  within  its  jurisdiction." 

The  committee  also  state  that  "The  tenth  census  shows 
that  the  United  States  have  570,000  tenant  farmers,  (it  will 
doubtless  reach  800,000  at  the  present  time)  the  largest 
number  possessed  by  any  nation  in  the  world,  notwith- 
standing our  policy  of  giving  homes  to  all  natives  and  for- 
eigners who  have  declared  their  intention  to  become  citizens 
if  they  will  but  reside  upon  the  land  for  five  years. 

"With  the  natural  increase  in  population  and  the  500,000 
foreigners  who  fiock  to  our  shores  annually,  and  by  com- 
petition, are  reducing  the  wages  of  labor,  making  the  bat- 


288  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

tie  of  life  harder  to  win,  how,  a  few  years  hehce,  to  provide 
homes  for  our  poor  people  is  a  problem  for  the  American 
statesman  to  solve.  The  multiplication  of  the  owners 
of  the  soil  is  a  corresponding  enlargement  of  the 
number  of  patriots,  and  every  landlord  in  this  country 
should  owe  allegiance  to  the  United  States." 

This  report  was  made  by  Mr.  Gates,  of  Alabama,  and  is 
patriotic  and  statesmanlike  throughout. 

In  every  state  in  the  Union  immense  areas  are  held"  by 
single  individuals,  and  worse  still  by  corporations. 

In  the  state  of  Texas,  vast  tracts  are  held  by  single  citi- 
zens, non-resident  speculators  and  aliens,  foreign  syndi- 
calee  and  by  various  classes  of  speculative  associations. 
The  legislature  of  this  State  granted  3,000,000  acres  of  the 
finest  pasture  land  within  her  borders  to  the  Farwell  Syn- 
dicate, of  Chicago,  in  consideration  that  the  latter  should 
construct  for  the  state  of  Texas  a  capitol  building.  Under 
the  terms  of  annexation  this  State  retained  the  title  to  her 
unoccupied  lands.  The  most  reckless  prodigality  has 
characterized  the  management  of  this  priceless  estate 
throughout  the  entire  history  of  that  commonwealth.  The 
doors  have  been  thrown  wide  open  to  every  kind  of  fraud, 
spoliation  and  speculation.  Following  the  example  of  the 
general  Government,  every  land  grabber  in  Christendom, 
foreign  or  domestic,  was  welcomed  to  her  borders. 

BAD  EXAMPLE  OF  ONE  CITIZEN. 

Ex- Governor  Coburn,  of  Maine,  in  1887,  owned  in  his 
own  State,  forty-five  thousand  acres,  eighteen  thousand  in 
Michigan,  thirty-five  thousand  in  Wisconsin,  eighteen 
thousand  in  Minnesota,  thirty-five  thousand  in  Dakota  and 
one  hundred  and  thirty-five  thousand  in  Canada.  His  last 
purchase  was  thirty-five  thousand  acres  from  the  Northern 
Pacific  Railroad  corporation,   and  Mr.  Whipple,  his  land 


ROME,    BRITAIN    AND    THE    UNITED    STATES.  2S9 

agent  in  Dakota,  declared  it  was  among  the  most  fertile 
land  in  all  the  West.  This  is  only  one  instance  among 
hundreds  of  like  enormity. 

ANTHRACITE   COAL   LANDS. 

The  total  amount  of  anthracite  coal  land  in  Penn- 
sylvania, is  between  two  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  and 
two  hundred  and  seventy  thousand  acres.  Of  this  the 
Reading  Coal  and  Iron  Company  owns  ninety-five  thou- 
sand acres;  Central  Bailroad  of  New  Jersey,  fourteen  thou- 
sand acres;  Lehigh  Yalley  Railroad,  twenty-five  thousand 
acres;  Delaware,  Lackawanna  &  Western,  twenty  thousand 
acres;  Delaware  &  Hudson,  twenty  thousand  acres;  Penn- 
sylvania Coal  Company,  ten  thousand  acres;  and  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad,  ten  thousand  acres.  The  remain- 
der is  held  by  parties  who  are  forced  by  transportation 
exactions  to  follow  the  lead  of  their  more  powerful  neigh- 
bors and  rivals. 

The  capitalization  of  these  companies  and  their  allies 
is  $500,000,000.  Even  the  New  York  Legislature  thought 
it  was  excessive. 

IN   THE   RING. 

The  anthracite  combination  consists  of  the  Philadelphia 
&  Reading  Railroad  Company,  the  Lehigh  Yalley  Rail- 
road Company  and  the  Lehigh  Coal  &  Navigation  Com- 
pany, the  Delaware,  Lackawanna  &  Western  Railroad 
Company,  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company,  the  Del- 
aware &  Hudson  Canal  Company,  the  Pennsylvania  Coal 
Company  and  the  New  York,  Lake  Erie  &  Western  Rail- 
road Company.  The  companies  are  named  in  the  order  of 
their  importance  as  coal  miners  and  carriers. 

Two  great  combinations  control  the  output  of  soft  coal 
in  Western  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio. 

19 


290  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

One  of  these  pools  is  called  the  Buffalo  Pool.  It 
consists  of  the  railroads  which  control  all  the  products 
which  come  by  way  of  Buffalo  for  a  market — the  Rochester 
and  Pittsburg,  the  Buffalo,  New  York  and  Philadelphia 
and  the  Erie  Railroad.  They  are  named  in  the  order  of 
their  importance  as  coal  carriers.  They  bring  the  yield 
from  the  Western  Penns^dvania  coal  fields. 

The  other  pool  is  known  as  the  Ohio  Pool,  and  it  con- 
trols, as  its  name  implies,  the  output  from  the  Ohio  fields. 
The  syndicate  consists  of  the  four  coal  carrying  roads  which 
control  the  transportation  from  that  section — the  Hocking 
Yalley,  the  Wheeling  and  Lake  Erie,  the  Toledo  and  Ohio 
Central  and  the  Panhandle  division  of  the  Pennsylvania 
syetem,  naming  them  in  the  order  of  importance. 

These  combinations  in  the  soft  coal  regions  are  rapidly 
extending  over  all  the  known  coal  and  iron  fields  of  the 
country,  and  they  are  largely  controlled  by  those  who  are 
prominent  in  Eastern  pools.  They  extend  also  into  the 
coal  and  iron  fields  of  the  South  and  West.  In  short,  the 
curse  is  everywhere. 

The  great  coke  industries  are  also  controlled  by  power- 
ful combinations  which  have  imported  Hungarians  and 
Poles  in  great  numbers  to  compete  with  American  labor. 
These  cruel  and  barbarous  combinations  are  responsible  for 
the  bloodshed,  rioting  and  merciless  evictions  which  are  in 
progress  as  we  pen  these  lines.     (May,  1891.) 

THE    CONCENTEATION   OF   WEALTH. 

About  one-thirtieth  part  of  the  English  people  own  two- 
thirds  of  the  wealth  of  that  nation.  But  the  wealth  of  her 
mightiest  citizens  fall  greatly  below  the  average  wealth  of 
a  score  of  Americans.  Mr.  Thomas  G.  Shearman  has 
rendered  the  cause  of  liberty  the  world  over,  a  most  patri- 
otic service,  by  his  startling  contributions  to  the  Forum  Maga- 


ROME,    BBITAIN    AND   THE    UNITED    STATES.  291 

zine  for  November,  1889,  and  January  1891,  upon  the 
distribution  or  rather  concentration  of  wealth  in  England 
and  America. 

The  richest  of  the  Rothchilds,  and  the  great  banker. 
Baron  Overstone,  each  left  an  estate  of  $17,000,000.  Earl 
Dudley,  the  great  iron  manufacturer,  $20,000,000;  the  Duke 
of  Baccleuch,  $30,000,000;  the  Marquis  of  Bute,  not  to  ex- 
ceed $40,000,000;  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  $4:0,000,000;  the 
Duke  of  Westminster,  $50,000,000. 

After  but  a  partial  examination  of  the  field,  mostly  within 
the  range  of  his  personal  observation,  Mr.  Shearman,  in 
the  papers  named,  gives  a  list  of  seventy  names,  none  of 
whom  possess  less  than  $20,000,000;  many  of  whom  pos- 
sess above  $100,000,000  and  as  high  as  $150,000,000,  and 
their  average  wealth  is  $35,000,000.  The  total  wealth  of 
the  seventy  reaches  the  startling  sum  of  $2,700,000,000. 
Mr.  Shearman  finds  sixty-seven  millionaires  in  Pittsburg, 
sixty-three  in  Cleveland,  whose  wealth  aggregate  $300,- 
000,000;  sixty  in  three  villages  of  New  York,  whose  wealth 
sums  up  $500,000,000.  One  of  the  estimated  parties  de- 
clares that  the  calculation  is  too  low  and  that  $750,000,000 
would  not  be  beyond  the  truth.  Fifty  families  in  Boston 
pay  taxes  on  $1,000,000  each.  And  finally  Mr.  Shearman 
says  that  the  annual  income  of  one  hundred  of  the  richest 
Americans  cannot  fall  short  of  $1,500,000  each;  while  the 
annual  income  of  one  hundred  of  the  wealthiest  English. 
men  will  not  exceed  $450,000  each.  He  finds  that  250,000 
persons  own  three-fourths  of  the  wealth  of  this  country  and 
that  out  of  this  number  less  than  40,000  families  own  fully 
one-half  of  the  entire  wealth,  or  $31,000,000,000.  Upon 
careful  examination  of  the  field  he  is  convinced  that  the 
number  who  own  the  $61, 000, 000, 000  can  safely  be  reduced 
to  25,000  families. 


292  A   CALL   TO    ACTIOS. 

That  born  aristocrat,  the  Duke  of  Marlboroa:^h,  in  a 
recent  paper  contributed  to  the  Fortnightly  Review,  notes 
the  bold  and  as^gressive  power  of  the  American  plutocracy 
and  speaks  of  "An  irresponsible  railway  aristocracy  far 
more  dangerous  in  its  ways  than  any  aristocratic  class  that 
ever  existed  in  England." 

Let  us  endeavor  to  grasp  something  of  the  significance 
of  the  above  figures.  The  late  war  commenced  in  April, 
1861,  and  closed  April,  1S65,  a  period  of  four  years,  or 
1,460  days.  The  cost  was  about  $3,000,000  per  day,  or 
$4,380,000,000  in  the  aggregate.  A  great  part  of  this  ex- 
penditure was  due  to  the  depreciation  of  oar  currency  which 
was  inflicted  upon  the  people  by  the  statutory  exception 
touching  its  legal  tender  quality  and  which  was  inserted  for 
the  benefit  of  speculators.  At  the  present  price  of  supplies 
of  all  kinds,  the  seventy  millionaires  referred  to  by  Mr. 
Shearman,  with  their  $2,700,000,000  of  wealth  could  main- 
tain an  army  in  the  field  equal  to  the  Union  forces  in  the 
late  war,  for  a  period  of  four  years  and  then  emerge  from 
the  conflict  out  of  debt  and  entirely  solvent!  The  250,000 
persons  who  own  the  $47,000,000,000,  could  equip  and  sup- 
port an  army  equal  to  the  Union  and  Confederate  forces  in 
the  late  war  combined,  and  for  a  period  of  four  years,  with 
an  expenditure  of  less  than  one-fifth  of  their  present  accum- 
ulated wealth!  We  should  bear  in  mind  that  these  colossal 
fortunes  have  been  accumulated  since  1861,  by  men  who 
started  in  moderate  circumstances  at  the  beginning  of  that 
period.  With  their  immense  accumulations  of  wealth  and 
class  laws  still  operating  in  their  favor,  what  may  they  not 
accomplish  within  the  next  ten  years?  These  colossal 
fortunes  have  no  parallel  in  the  annals  of  the  world.  Unless 
the  causes  which  have  produced  them  be  speedily  removed 
they  foreshadow  the  utter  destruction  of  republican  institu- 


KOME,    BRITAIN    AND    THE    UNITED    STATES.  293 

tions  and  the  inauguration  of  another  tragic  era  in  the  his- 
tory of  civilization , 

FRANCE    AT   TETE    OPENING    OF   THE   FRENCH   REVOLUTION. 

A  letter  written  by  Mr.  Jefferson  to  Mr.  Madison,  dated 
Fontainebleau,  October  28,  1785,  says: 

"The  property  of  this  country  (France)  is  absolutely  con- 
centrated in  a  very  few  hands,  having  revenues  of  from 
half  a  million  of  guineas  a  year  downward.  These  employ 
the  flower  of  the  country  as  servants,  some  of  them  having 
as  many  as  two  hundred  domestics  not  laboring.  They 
employ  also  a  great  number  of  manufacturers  and  trades- 
men, and  lastly  the  class  of  laboring  husbandmen;  but  after 
all  these  comes  the  most  numerous  of  all  the  classes — that 
is,  the  poor  who  cannot  find  work.  I  asked  myself  what 
could  be  the  reason  that  so  many  should  be  permitted  to 
beg,  who  are  willing  to  work,  in  a  country  where  there  is  a 
very  considerable  portion  of  uncultivated  lands.  These 
lands  are  kept  idle  mostly  for  the  sake  of  game.  (They 
are  after  human  game  in  America.)  It  should  seem,  then, 
that  it  must  be  because  of  the  enormous  wealth  of  the  pro- 
prietors, which  places  them  above  attention  to  the  increase 
of  their  revenues  by  permitting  these  lands  to  be  labored. 
I  am  conscious  that  an  equal  division  of  property  is-im- 
practicable;  but,  the  consequences  of  this  enormous  ine- 
quality producing  so  much  misery  to  the  bulk  of  mankind, 
legislators  cannot  invent  too  many  devices  for  sub-dividing 
property,  only  taking  care  to  let  their  sub-divisions  gcThand 
in  hand  with  the  natural  affections  of  the  human  mind. 
The  descent  of  property  of  every  kind,  therefore,  to  all  the 
children,  or  to  all  the  brothers  and  sisters  or  other  relations 
in  equal  degree  is  a  politic  measure,  and  a  practicable  one. 
Another  means  of  silently  lessening  the  inequality  of  prop- 
erty is  to  exempt  all  from  taxation  below  a  certain  point 
and  to  tax  the  higher  portions  of  property  in  geometrical 
progression  as  they  rise.  Wherever  there  are  in  any 
country  uncultivated  lands  and  unemployed  poor,  it  is  clear 
that  the  laws  of  property  have  been  so  far  extended  as  to 
violate  natural  right.     The  earth  is  ffiven  as  a  common 


294  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

stock  for  man  to  labor  and  live  on;  if,  for  the  encourage- 
ment of  industry  we  allow  it  to  be  appropriated,  we  must 
take  care  that  other  employment  be  furnished  to  those  ex- 
cluded from  the  appropriation.  If  we  do  not,  the  funda- 
mental right, to  labor  the  earth  returns  to  the  unemployed. 
It  is  too  soon  yet  in  our  country  to  say  that  every  man  who 
cannot  find  employment,  but  who  can  find  uncultivated 
land  shall  be  at  liberty  to  cultivate  it,  paying  a  moderate 
rent;  but  it  is  not  too  soon  to  provide  by  every  possible 
means  that  as  few  as  possible  shall  be  without  a  little  por- 
tion of  land.  The  small  land-holders  are  the  most  precious 
part  of  the  state." 

(See  Bancroft's  History  of  the  Constitution,  463-4,  Yol. 
1.,  Appendix.) 

Little  did  Mr.  Jefferson,  who  was  then  our  minister  of 
the  French  Court,  apprehend  that  within  less  than  four 
years  from  the  date  at  the  head  of  his  letter,  there  would 
burst  forth  from  the  very  conditions  wliich  he  was  describ- 
ing to  his  friend  Mr.  Madison,  the  most  tragic  and  cruel 
revolt  known  to  the  history  of  modern  nations — the  French 
Revolution.  The  deep  but  suppressed  sense  of  injustice 
long  suffered,  rushed  armed  into  the  streets,  surrounded 
the  palaces,  thronged  the  public  assemblies  and  demanded 
expiation  and  atonement.  Swarms  of  women  and  children 
surrounded  places  of  public  resort  crying,  "Bread!  Give 
bread!"  The  sword  had  come  and  the  guillotine  was  in 
waiting  for  its  victims.  America  feels  that  she  has  safe- 
guards against  such  a  catastrophe,  but  to  be  available  they 
must  be  appKed  when  the  public  mind  is  tranquil  and  free 
from  the  passion  of  revenge. 

According  to  the  census  reports  of  1880,  there  were  five 
hundred  and  thirty-nine  million  acres  of  cultivated  land  in 
the  States  and  Territories  of  the  United  States.  Let  us 
estimate  it  at  seven  hundred  millions  at  the  present  time. 
After  careful  inquiry  and  investigation  we  deem  it  a  low 
estimate  to  say  that  two-thirds  of  these  lands  are  under 


ROME,    BRITAIN    AND   THE    UNITED    STATES-  295 

mortgage,  paying  such  excessive  tribute  to  the  usurer,  that 
after  keeping  up  repairs,  paying  taxes  and  defraying  the 
current  expenses  of  families,  there  are  no  profits  left. 
Usury  has  swallowed  them  up  and  in  many  cases  leaves 
each  year  a  deficit  against  the  proprietor ,  Each  farm  is 
supporting  two  sets  of  proprietors,  the  nominal  land  owner 
and  the  mortgage  owner.  The  man  who  holds  the  mort- 
gage really  owns  the  land;  only  the  equity  of  redemption 
and  the  right  of  occupancy  remain  with  the  mortgager. 

Now  two- thirds  of  seven  hundred  million  acres  are  466,- 
Q6Q,666l  acres,  and  this  is  precisely  729,166f  square  miles, 
or  an  area  of  142,6661  square  miles  greater,  as  we  have 
seen,  than  the  total  tillable  land  in  Italy  Spain,  Portugal, 
France,  Germany,  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  This  analy- 
sis shows  that  we  are  drifting  towards  ancient  Roman  and 
modern  British  conditions  as  a  rudderless  ship  would  drift 
before  a  howling  hurricane.  We  are  amazed  and  appalled 
as  we  contemplate  the  velocity  at  which  we  are  traveKng 
toward  perilous  times.  Like  a  meteor  falling  through 
space  we  will  ignite  by  sheer  friction.  And  when  we  con- 
sider that  onr  unhappy  condition  has  been  reached  in  a 
single  century,  and  practically  during  the  last  quarter  of  a 
century,  it  does  not  require  the  gift  of  prophecy  to  foretell 
what  the  end  will  be.  If  such  results  are  normal  and  flow 
from  legitimate  and  healthful  influences,  it  becomes  perti- 
nent to  ask  what  are  the  peculiar  advantages  and  safe- 
guards of  republican  institutions  over  monarchy  or  an 
aristocracy  ? 

Providence  has  been  bountiful  with  us.  We  have  a  fer- 
tile country  blessed  with  a  mild  climate.  We  are  eighteen 
times  greater  in  area  than  the  republic  of  France,  while  we 
have  at  present  less  than  double  her  population.  Our  sup- 
ply of  raw  material  is  abundant,  and  our  facilities  for  man- 
ufacturing without  a  parallel .     We  have  every  variety  of 


296  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

climate  with  fruits  and  cereals  ample  to  supply  the  wants 
of  the  world.  By  what  evil  genius  are  we  controlled  ?  Is 
there  some  fell  spirit  at  the  helm  determined  to  drive  our 
bark  upon  the  rocks  ?  We  submit  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
American  people  to  immediately  search  out  the  causes  of 
these  conceded  evils  and  this  growing  disconter.t;  and  we 
must  apply,  and  apply  quickly,  the  amplest  remedies  which 
good  iheartSi-and  wise  heads  can  .devise. 


CHAPTKR  VIII. 


THE  SILVER  PROBLEM. 

This  whole  book  could  be  devoted  to  the  silver  question 
— the  history  and  use  of  silver  among  nations,  ancient  and 
modern,  the  relation  which  it  bears  to  the  commerce  of  our 
day  and  to  the  circulating-  media  throughout  Christendom ; 
but  such  treatment  of  the  subject  is  beyond  the  scope  of 
this  chapter  and,  as  we  think,  unnecessary  at  the  present 
stage  of  practical  inquiry.  We  shall  restrict  ourselves  to 
thoughts  concerning  the  uecessit}'^  and  importance  of  its 
full  reinstatement  as  money  in  our  own  country,  the 
motives  and  influences  which  led  to  demonitization  in  Eng- 
land, Germany  and  the  United  States,  and  shall  'Endeavor 
to  answer  some  of  the  arguments,  or  to  speak  more  accur- 
ately, the  fallacies  and  sophistries  now  interposed  to  pre- 
vent the  unrestricted  coinage  of  the  white  metal.  The 
remarkable  stability  which  has  always  characterized  the 
ratio  between  gold  and  silver  will  also  be  alluded  to,  and 
tables  will  be  appended  for  the  information  of  the  reader, 
covering  a  period  of  nearly  four  thousand  years. 

The  Government  of  the  United  States  is  in  its  youth. 
Our  resources  of  every  description  necessary  to  human 
comfort  and  advancement,  are  without  a  parallel.  Our 
population,  when  compared  with  our  inhabitable  area  and 
generous  resources  of  soil,  climate  and  products,  is  but 
meagre.  With  such  surroundings  as  these  it  is  right  that 
we  should  look  for  happiness  and  contentment  among  the 


298  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

people.  Instead,  however,  we  find  that  discontent,  debt 
and  destitution  exist  throughout  every  state  and  territory 
in  the  Union.  It  is  true  that  this  condition  of  affairs  does 
not  extend  to  the  whole  population.  But  it  is  beyond 
dispute  that  it  includes  a  very  considerable  portion  of  those 
who  earn  their  living  by  manual  labor.  We  find  millions 
of  people  homeless  and  out  of  employment;  millions  more 
in  danger  of  losing  their  homes,  and  still  more  millions 
working  for  wages  scarcely  suflScient  to  sustain  life  and 
respectability'-  and  so  meager  as  to  shut  out  hope  for  the 
future.  These  things  result  neither  from  pestilence  nor 
famine.  The  situation  is  full  of  the  most  aggravating 
contradictions.  This  destitution,  low  condition  of  wages, 
idleness,  debt,  and  this  homeless  condition  among  so  many 
people — all  of  these  distressing  things — exist  along  side  of 
abundant  crops,  within  sight  of  millions  of  acres  of  unoc- 
cupied land  and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  three-fourths  of 
our  country  is  still  in  the  rough,  new,  unfinished  and  sadly 
in  need  of  labor.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  our  products  of 
food  and  raiment  are  ample  to  feed  and  clothe  the  world, 
the  whole  country  is  startled  with  the  cry  of  destitution 
and  poverty !  It  is  certainly  the  duty  of  statesmen,  phil- 
osophers, philanthropists  and  christian  people  to  search 
out  the  real  causes  of  these  distressing  evils.  And  having 
ascertained  the  cause  or  causes,  it  is  their  duty  to  remove 
the  sources  of  irritation  if  within  the  range  of  human 
power. 

With  each  recurring  season  the  earth,  taken  as  a  whole, 
affords  ample  sustenance  and  to  spare,  for  all  animal  life. 
It  is  evident  that  ages  were  spent  in  preparing  the  forests, 
minerals,  fowls,  fishes  and  beasts  necessary  for  the  con- 
venience of  earth's  noblest  inhabitant — man.  Those  things 
which  man  could  not  provide  and  do  for  himself,  were  fur- 
nished ready  made  by  his  Creator,  and  man  was  enjoined 


THE    SILTEE   PROBLEM.  299 

to  make  use  of  these  instrumentalities  in  tillincr  the  earth 
and  fashioning  it  into  beauty.  Next  to  the  obligation  to  labor 
the  earth  lies  the  great  duty  of  properly  distributing  its 
products.  The  importance  of  this  latter  consideration  seems 
to  be  but  just  dawning  upon  mankind. 

Two  things  are  essential  to  proper  distribution.  First, 
abundant  circulating  medium.  Second,  ample  facilities 
for  transportation,  extending  to  every  sub-division  of  the 
community  and  to  the  remote  parts  of  the  body  politic.  We 
shall  here  treat  only  of  the  first.  The  second  will  be 
reserved  for  another  chapter. 

Old  terms  and  phrases  are  prone  to  become  trite  and 
threadbare,  but  they  did  not  come  into  general  use  without 
good  reason.  We  have  declared  that  the  first  essential  to 
proper  distribution  is  abundant  circulating  medium — 
money.  We  do  not  mean  plenty  of  idle  money,  nor  money 
which  is  so  scarce  and  hence  so  valuable  that  it  can  bring 
greater  returns  to  its  owner  by  being  hoarded  than  by  be- 
ing invested.  We  mean  money  that  is  abroad  in  the  chan- 
nels of  trade  performing  its  legitimate  office;  money  that 
works  and  not  money  that  shirks.  Idle  money  is  more  to 
be  despised  than  idle  men.  The  latter  are  often  the 
result  of  the  former.  There  is  a  compressed  sermon 
capable  of  infinite  expansion  in  Saint  Paul's  injunction  to 
the  Thessalonians,  "that  if  any  would  not  work  neither 
shall  he  eat."  An  idler  from  choice  is  an  intruder  and  a 
nuisance.  He  is  asking  for  reward  in  return  for  injury  in- 
flicted. We  very  properly  call  him  worthless,  and  the 
longer  he  remains  idle  the  less  he  is  worth.  Now  money 
was  invented  to  fill  a  certain  office,  to  do  a  given  work.  If 
it  will  bring  as  much  or  more  to  its  owner  when  locked  up 
in  vaults  than  it  will  when  flowing  in  the  channels  of  trade 
or  invested  in  productive  or  distributive  enterprise,  it  has 
simply  ceased  to  be  a  benefactor  and  has  become  a  scourge; 


300  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

it  has  been  transformed  into  a  robber  and  has  turned  dog- 
gedly upon  society  to  plunder  and  destroy.  When  money 
ceases  to  work — to  circulate — the  holders  of  it  should  not 
be  rewarded  for  its  idleness.  They  should  suffer  loss  by 
reason  of  this  idleness  just  as  an  individual  suffers  loss  when 
he  will  not  work.  It  is  impossible  for  money  ever  to  cir- 
culate with  proper  activity  as  long  as  it  is  so  artificially 
scarce  as  to  command  a  rate  of  interest  equal  to  the  average 
annual  increase  of  wealth.  Prudent,  well-informed  men 
cannot  afford  to  borrow  under  such  conditions.  The  value 
of  a  tool,  lies  in  its  use.  If  the  owner  does  not  wish  to  use 
it  himself,  he  cannot  be  justified  in  exacting  nor  the  bor- 
rower in  paying  as  much  for  its  use  as  can  be  earned  by  the 
tool  and  the  borrower  combined.  When  money  becomes 
so  scarce  as  to  command  a  rate  of  interest  which  is  double 
such  increase  of  wealth  and  even  greater  than  this,  as  is  the 
rule  in  this  country  to-day,  and  largely  so  throughout  the 
world,  nothing  but  the  direst  calamity,  disarrangement  and 
confusion  can  reasonably  be  expected.  To  paraphrase  an 
expression  once  made  use  of  by  Daniel  Webster,  we  are 
justified  in  asserting  that  as  long  as  "the  rich  man's  field  is 
fertilized  by  the  sweat  of  the  poor  man's  face,"  labor  will 
and  should  be  discontented  and  the  labor  problem  will 
remain  unsolved. 

THE   DEMAND    FOR   MONEY 

Senator  John  P.  Jones,  of  Nevada,  whom  the  writer 
believes  to  be  the  best  equipped  scholar  and  clearest  thinker 
upon  the  money  question  to  be  found  among  all  the  men 
of  the  present  age,  in  a  recent  speech  delivered  in  the 
Senate,  gave  utterance  to  the  following  sage  and  compre- 
hensive remarks: 

"The  demand  for  money  is  equivalent  to  the  sum  of  the 
demands  for  all  other  things  whatsoever,  for  it  is  through 


THE    SILVER   PROBLEM.  301 

a  demand  first  made  on  money  that  all  the  wants  of  man 
are  satisfied.  The  demand  for  money  is  instant,  constant, 
and  unceasino^  and  is  always  at  a  maximum.  If  any  man 
wants  a  pair  of  shoes,  or  a  suit  of  clothes,  he  does  not 
make  his  demand  first  on  the  shoemaker,  or  clothier.  No 
man  except  a  beggar  makes  a  demand  directly  for  food, 
clothes,  or  any  other  article.  Whether  it  be  to  obtain 
clothing,  food  or  shelter — whether  the  simplest  necessity 
or  the  greatest  luxury  of  life — it  is  on  money  that  the 
demand  is  first  made.  As  this  rule  operates  throughout 
the  entire  range  of  commodities  it  is  manifest  that  the 
demand  for  money  equals  at  least  the  united  demands  for 
all  other  things. 

"While  population  remains  stationary,  the  demand  for 
money  will  remain  the  same.  As  the  demand  for  one 
article  becomes  less,  the  demand  for  some  other  which 
shall  take  its  place  becomes  greater.  The  demand  for 
money  therefore  must  ever  be  as  pressing  and  urgent  as 
the  needs  of  man  are  varied,  incessant,  and  importunate. 


WHAT  IS  THE  SUPPLY  OF  MONEY 


"Such  being  the  demand  for  money,  what  is  the  supply? 
It  is  the  total  number  of  units  of  money  in  circulation 
(actual  or  potential)  in  any  country. 

"The  force  of  the  demand  for  money  operating  against 
the  supply  is  represented  by  the  earnest,  incessant  struggle 
to  obtain  it.  All  men  in  trades  and  occupations,  are  offer- 
ing either  property  or  services  for  money.  Each  shoe- 
maker in  each  locality  is  in  competition  with  every  other 
shoemaker  in  the  same  locality,  each  hatter  is  in  competi- 
tion with  every  other  hatter,  each  clothier  with  every  other 
clothier,  all  offering  their  wares  for  units  of  money.  In 
this  universal  and  perpetual  competition  for  money,  that 
number  of  shoemakers  that  can  supply  the  demand  for 
shoes  at  the  smallest  average  price  (excellence  of  quality 
being  taken  into  account)  will  fix  the  market  value  of  shoes 
in  money;  and  conversly,  will  fix  the  value  of  money  in 
shoes.  So  with  the  hatters  as  to  hats,  so  with  the  tailors 
as  to  clothes,  and  so  with  those  engaged  in  all  other  occu- 
pations as  to  the  products  respectively  of  their  labor. 


302  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

NO   ALTERNATIVE  FOK  MONET. 

"The  transcendent  importance  of  money,  and  the  con- 
stant pressure  of  the  demand  for  it  may  be  realized  by 
comparing  its  utility  with  that  of  any  other  force  that  con- 
tributes to  human  welfare. 

"In  all  the  broad  range  of  articles  that,  in  a  state  of 
civilization,  are  needed  by  man,  the  only  absolutely  indis- 
pensable thing  is  money.  For  everything  else  there  is 
some  substitute — some  alternative;  for  money  there  is  none. 
Among  articles  of  food,  if  beef  rise  in  price,  the  demand 
for  it  will  diminish,  as  a  certain  proportion  of  the  people 
will  resort  to  other  forms  of  food.  If,  by  reason  of  its 
continued  scarcity,  beef  continue  to  rise,  the  demand  will 
further  diminish,  until  finally  it  may  altogether  cease  and 
center  on  something  else.  So  in  the  matter  of  clothing. 
If  any  one  fabric  becomes  scarce,  and  consequently  dear,  the 
demand  will  diminish,  and  if  the  price  continue  rising,  it  is 
only  a  question  of  time  for  the  demand  to  cease  and  be 
transferred  to  some  alternative. 

"But  this  can  not  be  the  case  with  money.  It  can  never 
be  driven  out  of  use.  There  is  not,  and  there  never  can 
be,  any  substitute  for  it.  It  may  become  so  scarce  that 
one  dollar  at  the  end  of  a  decade  may  buy  ten  times  as 
much  as  at  the  beginning;  that  is  to  say,  it  may  cost  in 
labor  or  commodities  ten  times  as  much  to  get  it,  but  at 
whatever  cost  the  people  must  have  it.  Without  money 
the  demands  of  civilization  could  not  be  supplied." 

As  population  increases  it  is  plain  that  there  will  be  a 
proportionate  increase  in  the  demand  for  money.  In 
estimating  the  increase  necessary  to  keep  pace  with  the 
increase  of  population,  we  must  first  ascertain  whether 
there  was  an  adequate  supply  of  money  at  the  period  from 
which  the  increase  of  population  ia  calculated.  To  illus- 
trate: If  there  was  in  1880  an  ample  supply  of  corn  and 
beef  produced  within  the  United  Stares  to  supply  the 
wants  of  our  whole  population,  we  can  readily  tell  how 
much  of  these  products  will  be  required  by  our  people  in 


THE    SILVER   PROBLEM.  303 

the  year  1890,  by  first  ascertaining  what  the  increase  of 
our  population  has  been  during  the  ten  years.  But  let  us 
suppose  that  there  was  a  scarcity  of  these  articles  in  1880, 
In  that  event  it  is  clear  that  the  increase,  in  order  to  sup- 
ply our  wants  would  have  to  be  greater  in  proportion  than 
the  increase  in  population.  This  is  as  true  when  applied 
to  the  supply  and  necessary  increase  of  money  as  when 
applied  to  anything  which  money  will  buy.  Therefore,  in 
determining  the  quantity  of  money  now  necessary  to  be 
added  to  the  present  circulation,  it  is  necessary  to  recur  to 
some  period  in  our  history  when  our  circulating  medium 
was  conceded  to  be  ample  to  supply  the  demand.  If  this 
thought  be  lost  sight  of  we  are  without  solid  data  upon 
which  to  proceed .  If  the  supply  was  inadequate  to  start 
with,  the  deficiency  must  first  be  made  up  before  the  nec- 
essary increase  can  be  intelligently  calculated.  Legisla- 
tors and  many  writers  upon  finance  seem  to  have  lost  sight 
of  this  practical  business  truth.  If  a  law  should  be  passed 
to-day  making  it  the  imperative  duty  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  to  issue  and  place  in  circulation  annually,  an 
additional  amount  of  money  equal  to  the  future  estimated 
annual  increase  in  population,  the  .present  depressed  con- 
dition of  business  and  trade  would  extend  right  along 
through  future  years.  If  the  supply  is  inadequate  now  and 
the  money  should  only  be  increased  in  equal  amount  per 
capita  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  people  who  are  hereafter  to 
be  added  to  our  population,  it  would  remain  inadequate 
still. 

No  intelligent  person  will  deny  that  if  the  inhabitants  of 
a  country  increase  in  numbers,  the  demand  for  all  of  the 
necessaries  of  life  will  proportionately  increase.  If  the 
plane  of  living  shall  be  materially  advanced  the  demand 
for  money  may  properly  and  normally  increase  much  faster 
than  the  increase  in  population.     If  the  wants  of  the  peo- 


304  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

pie  at  a  given  period  were  properly  supplied,  and  there  has 
occurred  since  that  time  an  increase  in  population  equal,  for 
example,  to  ten  per  cent.,  is  it  not  clear  that  there  -is 
needed  for  consumption  ten  per  cent,  more  of  all  the 
things  necessary  to  human  comfort?  Senator  Jones  has 
just  correctly  taught  us  that  to  secure  these  things  the  de- 
mand must  first  be  made  on  money.  Why  then  is  it  not 
clear  that  there  should  be  ten  per  cent,  more  money  ?  Let 
us  apply  these  plain  principles  of  common  business 
sense  to  the  present  financial  situation  in  the  United  States. 
In  order  to  do  so  it  is,  as  before  intimated,  essential  that 
we  shall  start  with  our  population  at  a  period  when  there 
was  an  ample  supply  of  money  in  circulation,  and  then 
trace  briefly  the  fiscal  history  of  the  country  and  the  growth 
of  population  down  to  the  present  period.  If  the  reader 
will  take  our  arm  for  a  few  moments  we  will,  in  imagina- 
tion, forget  the  busy  scenes  of  1891,  and  shutting  our  ears 
to  complaints  from  every  quarter,  take  a  stroll  back  to 
a  period  filled  with  sharp  contrasts  of  joy  and  weeping, 
gladness  and  melancholy,  and  yet  a  day  which  was  sweetly 
welcome  to  good  people  everywhere — to  both  victors  and 
vanquished. 

Reader,  we  are  standing  amid  scenes  more  than  twenty- 
five  years  agone — standing  at  the  close  of  our  fratricidal 
war.  Do  you  recognize  the  surroundings  ?  Listen  !  Can 
you  not  catch  the  clear  note  of  the  bugle  singing  its  sweet 
concord  of  peace  ?  Let  us  unloose  our  shoe-latchets,  for 
we  are  upon  sacred  ground. 

We  will  now  first  take  a  census  of  the  people  and  learn 
how  many  escaped  the  carnage  of  that  fierce,  unequal 
struggle. 

The  information  is  easily  obtained  and  is  of  the  greatest 
significance.  We  find  there  were  25,000,000  people,  in 
round  numbers,  residing  in  the  Northern  states  at  the  close 


THE    SILVER   PROBLEM.  305 

of  the  war,  1865.  In  the  Southern  states  about  10,000,000. 
Total  about  35,000,000. 

Let  us  next  look  into  the  economic  situation  at  that  time 
in  these  respective  sections  of  the  Union.  In  referring  to 
the  tables  givinsj  the  prices  of  the  various  commodities 
which  enter  into  daily  consumpticn,  we  ascertain  that  the 
whole  range  of  prices  ruled  high  at  that  time.  In  the 
North  the  people  were  exceptionally  prosperous  notwith- 
standing the  terrible  strain  of  war.  They  were  also  free 
from  debt,  and  this  fact  conspired  to  render  the  financial 
situation  extremely  felicitous.  The  Administration,  through 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  congratulated  the  country 
upon  the  fact  that  the  people  were  "comparatively  free 
from  debt. "  No  well  informed  person  will  dispute  the  fact 
that  the  whole  circulating  medium  then  in  the  United 
States  was"confined  in  its  circulation  to  the  Northern  States. 
The  South  was  desolate,  her  people  destitute  and  without 
money. 

It  iz  highly  important  that  we  shall  know  how  much 
money  of  the  various  kinds  then  in  use,  was  in  circulation 
among  the  25,000,000  people  at  that  period.  To  set  this 
question  at  rest,  we  have  selected  a  witness  who  is  sharply 
at  variance  with  the  school  of  political  economy  to  which 
the  author  of  this  book  belongs — a  gentleman  who  is  too 
well  informed  to  misquote  the  record  and  too  cautious  in 
his  methods  of  expression  to  exaggerate  the  situation 
against  himself.  We  refer  to  .Mr.  John  Jay  Knox,  late 
Comptroller  of  the  Currency,  whose  ability  and  opportun- 
ities for  information  are  surpassed  by  none. 

In  a  speech  which  he  delivered  before  the  Convention  of 
the  American  Banker's  Association,  at  Pittsburgh,  Pa., 
Qptober,  1887,  Mr.  Knox  said: 

"About  four  years  after  the  warhad  commenced,  in  Aug- 
ust, 1865,  the  public  debt  amounted  to  f.2, 845, 907,426;  and 

20 


306  A   CALL  TO   ACTION. 

included  in  this  huge  mountain  of  indebtedness  there  were 
$1,540,000,000  of  treasury  notes,  either  payable  on  demand 
or  bearing  interest,  of  which  more  than  $1,500,000,000  was 
a  legal  tender.  If  temporary  loans,  payable  in  thirty  days 
and  certificates  of  indebtedness,  payable  one  year  after 
date,  should  be  included  with  treasury  notes,  the  whole 
would  amount  to  considerably  more  than  three-fifths  of  the 
$2,846,000,000  of  the  debt  of  the  country.  Of  this  debt 
there  were  $830,000,000  of  legal  tender  seven-thirty  notes, 
$217,000,000  of  compound  interest  six  per  cent,  legal  ten- 
der notes,  $27,000,000  of  fractional  currency  and  $43Sf,000,- 
000  of  demand  legal  tender  notes.  Proceedings  of  Con., 
pages  20-21. 

The  suggestion  of  Mr.  Knox,  concerning  temporary  loans 
and  certificates  of  indebtedness,  payable  one  year  after 
date,  are  pertinent  and  stamp  his  entire  statement  with 
fairness  and  accuracy.  It  is  also  suggestive  to  the  business 
mind  that  they  should  be  so  included,  inasmuch  as  they 
constituted  a  part  of  the  circulating  obligations  of  the 
Government.  Now,  three-fifths  of  the  public  debt  ($2,845,- 
000,000)  would  give  us,  according  to  Mr.  Knox,  over 
$1,700,000,000,  of  various  kinds  of  circulating  Government 
paper  currency,  exclusive  of  National  bank  notes  ($146,- 
000,000)  solvent  state  bank  paper  ($58,000,000)  being  then 
still  held  by  the  people  throughout  the  North;  and  exclusive 
also  of  $100,000,000  of  gold  and  silver  coin  then  in  the 
countrj''  and  whi.'h  circulated  to  the  extent  at  least  of  pay- 
ing customs  duties  and  interest  on  the  public  debt. 

"When  these  facts  are  understood,  it  is  not  hard  to  com- 
prehend why  prosperity  was  so  universal  in  the  North  at 
period  under  consideration.  Two  billions  of  money  in  use 
among  25,000,000  people  would  of  course  make  them 
prosperous.  ^ 

Let  us  now  contrast  the  conditions  of  1865  with  the  situ- 
ation  at   the   present  time.      We  have  in  1892  in  round 


THE   SILVER   PROBLEM.  307 

numbers,  61,000,000  people.  We  are  neither  vexed  by  the 
scourge  of  pestilence  nor  the  havoc  of  war,  but  are  free 
from  both.  Whatever  the  amount  of  our  circulating 
medium  may  be  it  is  scattered  throughout  all  our  states  and 
territories  and  is  shared  in  some  degree  by  every  commu- 
nity in  the  land.  How  much  have  we  ?  Let  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  answer,  in  the  first  instance,  and  then  we 
■will  mention  some  things  which  are  left  out  in  the  Secre- 
tary's calculation .  In  his  statement  sent  out  January  1, 
1892,  this  officer  said  we  had  at  that  time — exclusive  of 
various  kinds  of  money  then  locked  in  the  treasury — 
$1,588, 781,729.  This  is  about  $400,000,000  less  than  the 
people  of  the  Northern  states  held  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago. 

Now  what  is  the  situation  revealed  ?  The  answer  is 
startling.  Twenty-seven  years  &g;o  25,000,000  people  all 
!;old,  were  employing  in  their  current  business  about" 
$2,000,000,000  of  various  forms  of  money.  To-day,  64,- 
000,000  people  are  restricted  bylaw  and  bank  manipulators 
to  the  use  of  $1,588,000,000!  Our  money-using  popula- 
tion, it  will  be  seen,  has  increased  one  hundred  and  fifty 
per  cent  since  1865,  while  our  money  has  decreased, 
according  to  the  Secretarj-'s  own  showing,  twenty  per  cent! 
This  is  the  most  stupendous  crime  of  the  age.  The  money 
using  population  having  increased  one  hundred  and  fiftj' 
per  cen^,  has  not  the  demand  for  all  things  necessary  to 
their  comfort  also  increased  in  the  same  ratio?  As  the  con- 
d^'tion  of  our  internal  trade  is  not  one  of  barter,  and  in 
order  to  procure  these  comforts,  demand  must  first  be 
made  upon  money,  who  will  be  heard  to  eay  that  the  de- 
mand for  money  has  not  increased  one  hundred  and  fiifty 
per  cent  also?  Does  the  reader  comprehend  the  magni- 
tude of  thvi  unutterable  wrong  which  has  been  committed 
against  the  people  of  this  country?     And  has  he  opened  his 


308  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

eyes  to  the  ghastliness  of  the  picture  ?  Do  we  realize  that 
these  39,000,000  people  all  need  money  as  sorely  as  the 
25,000,000  did  at  the  close  of  the  war,  and  j^et  that  not  one 
dollar  has  been  provided  for  them  ?  That  on  the  contrary, 
the  sum  total  of  the  money  in  use  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago  has  been  reduced  twenty  per  cent?  These  39,000,000 
have  entered  society  as  competitors  along  with  the  25,000.- 
000  who  were  here  before  them,  for  the  little  money  that 
is  left  in  circulation.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  money  has 
become  valuable  and  hard  to  get — too  valuable  to  be 
employed  in  legitimate  business  and  fit  only  to  enable  its 
owner  to  drive  hard  and  unconscionable  bargains  ? 

The  foregoing  observations  explain  the  universal  condi- 
tion of  debt  which  to-day  is  cursing  the  whole  country  with 
blight  and  mildew,  driving  independence,  thrift  and  hope 
from  the  abodes  of  our  people. 

But  some  captious  or  conscientious  critic  may  insist  that 
Mr.  Knox  has  overestimated  the  amount  of  money  in  cir- 
culation at  the  close  of  the  war.  That  the  $830,000,000  of 
seven-thirties,  should  be  excluded  which  would  reduce  the 
amount  in  circulation  to  say  $1,200,000,000.  We  shall 
examine  that  claim  further  on.  For  the  present  let  us 
suppose  that  the  criticism  is  well  founded.  How  would 
the  account  then  stand  ?  This  would  still  leave  in  circula- 
tion $48  per  capita  for  the  25,000,000  people  using  the 
money  at  the  close  of  the  war,  while  to-day,  the  Secretary 
only  claims  that  we  have  $1,588,781,729,  or  about  $25  per 
capita  for  the  present  population.  Thus  we  see  that  tak- 
ing our  critic  upon  his  own  grounds,  we  have  only  a  little 
over  half  as  much  money  to  the  individual  as  we  had  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago.  It  is  unreasonable  to  look  for 
industrial  and  business  prosperity  under  such  conditions. 
Every  faculty  of  the  well-informed  mind  and  all  the  in- 


thp:  silver  problem. 


309 


Etincts  of  human  nature  conspire  to  demand  the  application 
of  some  adequate  remedy  to  this  alarming  situation. 

But  the  seven -thirties  should  not,  nor  can  they  properly 
be  excluded  in  estimating  the  amount  of  currency  in  circu- 
lation at  the  close  of  the  war.  This  will  conclusively 
appear  from  the  following  considerations: 

1.  They  were  '  'treasury  notes, "  and  were  so  denominated 
in  the  law.  (See  Act  June  30,  1864,  and  Act  March  3, 
1885.)  They  were  issued  ""in  lieu"  of  bonds  and  made 
legal  tender  at  their  face  value,  exclusive  of  interest,  and 
could  be  paid  to  any  creditor  willing  to  receive  them  at 
par,  including  interest.  (See  2  Act  June  30, 1864,  Revised 
Statute,  Sec.  3590.)  Those  notes  were  gladly  received  by 
all  classes  of  people.  They  were  paid  to  the  army  by 
Government  pay-masters  and  went  to  swell  the  volume  of 
our  currency.  Secretary  Fessenden,  in  his  report  to  Con 
gress,  December  6,  1861,  page  206,  speaks  of  the  effort 
which  he  had  made  to  raise  funds  to  pay  the  amount  "due 
our  brave  soldiers"  and  says: 

"More  fully  to  accomplish  his  purpose,  the  Secretary 
resolved  to  avail  himself  of  a  wish  expressed  by  many 
officers  and  soldiers,  through  the  pay-masters,  and  offered 
to  such  as  desired  to  receive  them,  seven-thirty  notes,  of 
small  denominations.  He  was  gratified  tliat  these  notes 
were  readily  tsken  in  payment  to  a  large  amount,  our  gal- 
lant soldiers,  in  many  instances,  not  only  receiving  them 
with  alacrity,  but  expressing  their  satisfaction  at  being  able 
to  aid  their  country  by  loaning  money  to  the  Government." 

Again,  on  page  209  of  the  same  report,  Secretary  Fes- 
senden further  saj'^s :  "The  seven  and  three-tenths  notes 
authorized  by  tho  act  of  June  30,  1864,  and  now  offered  to 
the  public,  present  as  many  advantages  as  any  form  of 
currency  security,  uniting  a  high  rate  of  interest  with  con" 
vertibility." 


310  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

Secretary  McCulloch  in  his  report  on  the  finances,  De- 
cember 4,  1865,  page  184,  states  that  maney  of  the  seven 
and  three-tenth  notes  of  small  denominations  were  in 
circulation  as  money,  and  that  the  whole  issue,  $830,000,000 
tended  to  swell  the  inflation.  He  further  states  in  the  same 
report  that  these  notes  were  distributed  in  every  part  of 
the  country.  They  were  issued  in  three  series  dated 
August  15,  1864,  June  15,  1865  and  July  15,  1865.  Forty- 
four  millions  were  in  denominations  of  fifty  dollars;  one 
hundred  and  thirty-seven  millions,  in  one  hundred;  two 
hundred  and  twenty-eight  millions,  in  five  hundreds;  three 
hundred  and  seventy  millions  in  one  thousands;  and  about 
fifty  millions  in  five  thousands.  They  were  payable, 
principal  and  interest,  in  lawful  money,  and  it  was  so 
plainly  stated  on  the  face  of  the  notes. 

Mr.  John  Jay  Knox  in  his  work  entitled  "  United  States 
Notes"  and  published  in  1885,  on  page  85,  gives  the  fol- 
lowing table  of  the  various  kinds  of  currency  obligations 
outstanding  August  31,  1865: 

United  States  legal  tender  notes $  433,160,569.00 

Compound  interest  legal  tender  notes....  217,024,160.00 

Five  per  cent  legal  tender  notes 33,954,230.00 

Seven-thirty  notes 830,000,000.00 

Fractional  currency 26,344,742.51 

Temporary  loans 107,148,713.16 

Certificates  of  indebtedness 85,093,000.00 

Total $1,732,735,414.67 

When  we  add  the  National  bank  notes,  the  State  bank 
notes  still  in  circulation,  and  the  available  specie  then  in 
country  and  which  had  a  qualified  use,  we  again  reach  the 
grand  total  of  about  two  billions  of  dollars  of  circulating 
medium  as  before  stated  in  this  chapter. 

Where  these  notes  were  not  paid  to  soldiers,  they  were 
paid  out  as  we  have  abundantly  demonstrated,  in  current 


THE   SILVER   PEOBLEM.  311 

Government  business  and  thus  found  their  way  into  the 
channels  of  trade.  The  fact  that  they  were  drawing  seven 
and  three-tenths  per  cent  interest  caused  them  to  rapidly 
pass  into  the  hands  of  capitalists,  but  in  doing  so  they  dis- 
placed other  forms  of  currency  which  passed  back  to  the 
people,  while  the  moneyed  classes  used  the  interest  bear- 
ing notes  in  financial  circles. 

PRESENT   CIECFLATION. 

We  have  not  j^et  seen  the  picture  in  all  of  its  astonishing 
and  appalling  outlines.  We  assert  that  the  statement  of 
the  President  of  the  United  States  made  in  his  annual  mes- 
sage to  Congress,  December,  1891,  that  we  had  then  in  cir- 
culation, outside  of  the  money  retained  in  the  Treasury, 
$1,578,262,070,  and  the  statement  of  the  Secretary,  January 
1,  1892,  that  we  had  at  that  time  $1,588,000,000  are  inac- 
curate and  misleading  in  the  extreme.  The  people  want 
to  know  how  much  of  this  money  is  in  actual  circulation  or 
available  for  that  purpose,  and  are  not  asking  for  an  exhi- 
bition of  book-keeping.  If  any  portion  of  it  is  not  in  cir- 
culation, inasmuch  as  it  is  their  own  money,  they  are 
entitled  to  know  just  where  it  is  and  who  has  it  in  keeping. 

If  the  money,  is  circulating  actively  they  want  to  know 
it;  if  it  is  stagnant  and  withheld  either  by  law  or  the  voli- 
tion of  those  who  are  handling  it,  they  wish  to  know  the 
exact  situation.  They  will  search  in  vain  for  such  infor- 
mation in  the  President's  message  or  the  Secretary's 
report. 

In  estimating  the  amount  of  money  in  circulation  at  the 
date  of  the  statements,  it  is  safe  to  rely  upon  our  officials 
for  one  fact  only — the  amount  of  money  in  the  country  out- 
side of  the  treasury,  as  shown  by  the  books — nothing 
more.  We  must  deduct  for  ourselves,  the  amount  lost,  de- 
stroyed and  worn  out  during  the  past  twenty-eight  years, 


X 


312  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

the  amount  hoarded,  and  the  amount  held  as  reserve  by 
the  great  multitude  of  banks,  in  order  to  get  at  the  real 
monetary  situation.  When  these  items  are  considered,  the 
$1,588,000,000  will  be  greatly  reduced.  The  following  is 
believed  to  be  a  fair  estimate,  but  is  entirely  overlooked  by 
the  Secretary. 

According  to  Foster,  we  have ,$1,588,781,729 

Deduct,    paper    money    lost,   destroyed  and 

worn  out  in  twenty-eight  years,  say 50,000,000 

Hoarded— low  estimate 25,000,000 

Held  as  reserves  by  National  Banks — see  Comp- 
troller's Report,  1889,  page  51 , 460,000,000 

Held  as  reserves  by  private  banks — estimated  250,000,000 

Total $    785,000,000     • 

Balance  in  circulation  among  our  64,000,000 
•     people  and  available  for  daily  business  trans- 
actions       803,781,729     . 

The  reader  must  bear  in  mind  that  it  is  the  total  amount 
of  currency  available  in  the  daily  current  of  business  that 
must  be  considered,  rather  than  the  total  amount  held  in 
the  country. 

The  above  calculation  is  more  liberal  than  the  statement 
made  by  the  Hon.  Preston  B.  Plumb,  delivered  in  the  Sen- 
ate of  the  United  States,  during  the  first  session  of  the 
Fifty-first  Congress. 

Mr.  K.  M.  Widney,  President  of  a  National  bank  at  Los 
Angeles,  California,  made  the  following  startling,  and  yet 
upon  examination,  we  find  to  be  very  liberal  statements,  in 
a  speech  which  he  recently  delivered  before  a  banker's  con- 
vention in  that  state: 

"The  total  amount  owing  by  all  the  banking  institutions 
of  the  United  States,  (8,055)  to  depositors  in  July,  1890, 
was  $4,603,844,157. 

Total  cash  in  in  all  of  these  banks  at  the  same  date  was: 


THE    SILVER   PROBLEM.  313 

Gold  coin $  99,811,011 

Silver,  nickels,  foreign  coin,  etc .     28,811,478 

Paper  money " 349,694,405 

Total $478,316,694 


7 


*'Oiily  a  fraction  over  ten  cents  on  the  dollar  on  hand  to 
pay  the  depositors  on  demand! 

"If  gold  were  the  only  legal  tender,  there  would  be  on  X 
hand  about  two  cents  on  the  dollar  for  depositors ! 

"Or,  if  gold  and  silver  were  combined  it  would  give  less  X 
than  three  cents  on  the  dollar! 

"By  using  gold,  silver  and  coin  certificates  on  the  treasury  j 
of  the  United  States,  there  would  be  only  about  five  cents  ^ 
on  the  dollar  in  cash  for  depositors! 

"At  the  same  date  these  banks  had  loaned  out  to  the  X 
people,  $3,893,851,799. 

'  'There  were  then  about  $957, 746, 248  (he  makes  this  item       X 
too  large)  scattered  in  the  hands  of  64,000.000  people. 

"This  represents  only  about  twenty-five  cents  on  the  dol- 
lar for  the  people  to  pay  on  their  loans,  to  the  banks  alone. 
But  most  of  the  outstanding  money  is  in  the  hands  of  par- 
ties not  debtors  to  the  banks.  It  may  be  safely  estimated 
that  the  people  could  not  pay  the  banks  ten  cents  on  the 
dollar  in  cash,  neither  could  the  banks  pay  over  ten  cents 
on  the  dollar  to  depositors." 

These  statements  of  Mr.  Widney  are  all  justified  by 
oflScial  data.  The  banks  pay  no  interest  to  depositors,  as 
a  rule,  but  those  who  borrow  from  the  banks  pay  interest 
in  advance  in  almost  every  instance.  Do  not  these  fig- 
ures, being  beyond  dispute,  reveal  a  most  phenomenal, 
absurd  and  startling  business  situation  ?  They  prove  that 
the  banks  have  loaned  out  to  the  people  more  than 
twice  as  much  money  as  the  Secretary  says  is  in  circulation, 
and  nearly  five  times  as  much  as  our  own  estimate, 
given  above,  shows  to  be  actually  in  the  channels  of  trade! 
More  still — they  establish  the  fact  that  the  banks  are 
indebted  to  depositors  about  three  times  as  much  money 
as  the    books  of  the  Treasury   show  can   possibly  be  at 


314  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

their  command.  Still  more — the  reader  must  remember 
that  these  figures  relate  only  to  the  reciprocal  transactions 
between  the  people  and  the  banks,  and  do  not  include  the 
great  and  almost  illimitable  volume  of  business  constantly 
occurring  in  daily  life,  with  which  the  banks  have  nothing 
to  do. 

In  view  of  these  facts,  which  are  beyond  contradiction, 
the  conclusion  is  irresistible  that  the  whole  country  has 
been  reduced  to  the  servitude  of  debt.  We  have  reached 
the  fatal  condition  where  credit  is  substituted  for  money 
to  an  extent  which  makes  the  capitalist  and  the  usurer  the 
masters  of  society.  The  yoke  is  galling  and  exceedingly 
hard  to  cast  off.  Nations  before  our  day  have  tried  to  free 
themselves  from  the  curse  and  failed. 

The  increase  of  our  population,  the  consequent  demands 
of  business  and  the  increased  volume  of  trade  imperatively 
demand  an  increase  in  our  circulating  medium.  There  is 
no  hope  without  it.  The  exactions  of  creditors  and 
usurers  are  bringing  labor  deeper  and  deeper  into  debt 
from  year  to  year. 

We  have  demonstrated  that  there  is  a  distressing  scarcity 
of  money,  and  this  demonstrates  the  necessity  for  the  full 
reinstatement  of  silver  as  one  of  the  money  metals. 

It  is  admitted  that  gold  cannot  be  obtained  to  meet  the 
emergency.  Why  not  supply  the  deficiency,  as  far  as 
possible,  with  silver  coin  ?  If  we  should  coin  all  that  we 
can  by  any  possibility  reach,  it  would  be  like  a  widow's 
mite  cast  into  the  great  charity  collection  of  the  world. 

The  gold  and  silver  product  of  the  world  for  the  past 
five  hundred  years  is  estimated  by  the  very  best  authority 
as  follows: 

Gold $  7,240,000,000 

Silver 7,435,000,000 

Total $14,675,000,000 


THE    SILVEE   PROBLEM.  315 

Of  this  sum  there  is  supposed  to  be  in  existence  to-day  in 
the  whole  world  consisting  of  coin,  bullion  and  plate,  a 
little  over  ten  billions. 

The  production  of  silver  in  the  world  for  1888,  the  latest 
reliable  data — was  125,830,000  fine  ounces.  Its  market 
value  with  the  law  against  it,  was  $117,651,000.  Coining 
value  $162,680,000-  The  world's  product  of  gold  for  the 
same  year  was  $118, 800, 000. 

The  United  States,  as  stated  by  the  Director  of  the  mint, 
produced  50,000,000  fine  ounces  out  of  the  117,651,000 
produced  throughout  the  earth. 

The  annual  consumption  of  silver  in  the  arts  in 
the  United  States,  is  estimated  by  the  Director 
of  the  mint,  to  be $    8,760,000 

In  the  rest  of  the  world  8,840,000 

Total  annual  consumption $17,600,000 

The  annual  consumption  of  gold  for  the  same  purpose 
throughout  the  world,  according  to  various  mint  reports, 
ranges  from  $30,000,000  to  846,000,000  or  an  average  of 
about  one- third  of  the  world's  annual  product. 

The  use  of  silver  is  not  experimental.  It  has  been  used 
as  money  without  detriment  from  the  twilight  of  history 
down  to  the  present  effulgent  era  of  human  advancement. 
It  has  had  the  sanction  of  all  the  great  names  of  history 
— from  Abraham,  of  Ur,  of  the  Chaldees,  to  Abraham 
lincoln,  of  our  own  day. 

WHY   WAS   SILVER  DEMONETIZED? 

There  was  no  pretense  that  difficulty  existed  in  maintain- 
ing the  relative  value  of  the  two  metals,  at  the  established 
ratio  of  15i  to  1  in  Europe  and  16  to  1  in  America.  An 
examination  of  the  price  tables  prior  to  1873,  convinced 
the  wealthy  and  aristocratic  classes  in  the  old  world,  and 
those  who  desired  to  pattern  after  them  in  this,   that  the 


316  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

value  of  their  annuities,  salaries  and  fixed  incomes,  were 
diminishing  in  purchasino;  power.  They  also  saw  that  the 
spirit  of  independence  and  self-reliance  amono^  the  people, 
those  sturdy  virtues  which  always  lead  in  human  advance- 
ment— were  increasin_g  in  the  same  ratio  with  the  accumu- 
lation of  property  among  the  masses.  In  the  perverted 
judgment  of  these  plutocrats,  scarcity  of  money  would 
remedy  both  diflSculties.  It  would  increase  the  value  of 
their  fixed  incomes  and  choke  out  the  rising  ambition  of 
the  people.  Accordingly  monetary  commissions  were  ap- 
pointed by  the  various  European  governments  to  inquire 
into  the  situation. 

In  the  French  report  of  1869,  the  arguments  on  both 
sides  were  clearly  set  forth.  The  oflScial  resume  of  the 
commission  gives  them  in  full.  In  behalf  of  a  single  gold 
standard  it  was  said: 

'  'The  rise  in  price  which  has  taken  place  within  twenty- 
years  in  a  great  number  of  articles  of  merchandise  is  evi- 
dently due  to  many  causes,  such  as  war,  bad  harvests  and 
increase  in  consumption;  but  it  is  very  probable  that  the 
depreciation  of  the  precious  metals  has  contributed  to  it 
since  there  has  been  a  striking  coincidence  between  the  rise 
of  prices  and  the  production  of  the  new  mines  of  gold  and 
silver.  The  annual  production  of  the  two  metals,  which 
was  only  $80,000,000  in  1847,  now  exceeds  $200,000,000. 
It  has  nearly  tripled,  and  it  is  to  see  that  the  real  value  of 
metals  has  diminished.  It  is  difficult  to  estimate  exactly 
what  the  diminution  is,  but  whatever  it  may  be  it  demands 
the  attention  of  Governments,  because  it  affects  unfavorably 
all  that  portion  of  the  population  whose  income,  remaining 
nominally  the  same,  undergoes  a  yearly  diminution  of  pur- 
chasing power.  As  Governments  control  the  weight  and 
standard  of  money,  they  ought  so  far  as  possible  to  assure 
its  value.  And  as  it  is  admitted  that  the  tendency  of  the 
metals  is  to  depreciate,  this  tendency  should  be  arrested  by 
demonetizing  one  of  them. 

In  behalf  of  the  double  standard  it  was  replied  as  follows: 


THE   SILVER   PROBLEM.  317 

"Many  economists  argue  that  the  precious  metals  hav- 
ing become  very  abundant,  have  lost  10  or  15  per  cent  of 
their  value,  and  that  the  situation  must  be  redressed  by 
making  money  scarcer  by  demonetizing  silver.  To  this  it 
may  be  answered  that  the  great  discoveries  of  gold  of  the 
last  twenty  years  have  injured  nobody.  The  new  mass  of 
gold,  spreading  over  the  whole  world,  has  found  emplo}^- 
ment  in  stimulating  all  forms  of  business,  and  as  a  conse- 
quence, the  value  of  gold  has  fallen  very  little.  According 
to  Mr.  ]!^ewmarch,  the  mass  of  gold  and  silver  has  aug- 
mented 3  per  cent  per  annnm,  while  the  mass  of  exchanges 
has  augmented  more  than  3  per  cent  per  annum,  so  that  the 
equilibrium  has  been  ,maintained.  And  the  present  is  an 
especially  inopportune  time  to  demonetize  silver,  because 
the  annual  production  of  gold  has  been  falling  off  for  sev- 
eral years.  It  was  $200,000,000  in  1853,  and  it  is  now  not 
more  than  $140,000,000.  What  will  happen  to  the  civilized 
world  if  silver  is  demonetized  and  if  gold  shall  then  fail  ?" 

WHY   ENGLAND   ADHERES   TO    THE   GOLD    STANDARD. 

England  demonetized  silver  June  22,  1816.  The  law  in 
force  prior  to  that  date,  18  Chas.,  2,  C.  5,  allowed  free  coin- 
age of  both  metals  without  charge.  The  act  of  1816, 
which  struck  down  silver,  was  passed  at  a  time  when  Eng- 
land was  without  either  gold  or  silver  and  was  using  paper 
money  exclusively — that  money  with  which  she  had  just 
successfully  fought  the  Napoleonic  wars.  But  her  states- 
men, who  always  rule  in  the  interests  of  the  nobility  and 
the  wealthy  classes,  were  then  preparing  to  reach  specie 
payments  only  three  years  ahead. 

Lord  Liverpool  procured  the  passage  of  the  law  of  1816 
which  secured  the  single  gold  standard  in  that  country. 
It  was  intended  to  put  a  stop  to  the  unexampled  prosperity 
of  the  people  which  had  resulted  from  an  abundant  legal 
tender  currency.  This  act  supplemented  by  the  act  to 
resume  specie  payments,  forced  the  people  of  Britain  back 
to  a  restricted  gold  currency.     Abundant  paper  monej'^  had 


318  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

not  only  enabled  Great  Britain  to  overthrow  Napoleon, 
but  it  had  made  her  the  "work  shop  of  the  world,"  and 
hence  the  ^reat  creditor  Nation  of  the  earth.  Scarce  and 
dear  money,  her  statesmen  understood,  would  force  down 
wages  at  home  and  cheapen  the  price  of  her  manufactures. 
This  would  make  her  the  market  of  the  nations  and  those 
who  dealt  with  her  would  become  borrowers  while  she 
would  be  the  lender. 

Fortunately  we  are  not  left  in  doubt  concerning  this. 
The  royal  commission  appointed  by  England  in  1886  to 
inquire  into  the  relative  value  of  the  two  metals  expressly 
state  (P.  90,  Part  2,  Section  128): 

"  It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  this  country  is  largely 
a  creditor  country,  of  debts  payable  in  gold,  and  any 
change  which  entails  a  rise  in  the  price  of  commodities 
generally,  that  is  to  say,  a  diminution  of  the  purchasing 
power  of  gold  would  be  to  our  disadvantage." 

In  a  speech  delivered  by  Sir  L.  Playfair,  in  Parliament, 
April  1890,  the  following  open  avowal  was  made: 

"The  true  policy  of  England  as  the  chief  creditor  Nation 
of  the  world  was  to  keep  perfect  independence,  and  to 
refuse  participation  in  any  entangling  conference  on  our 
monetary  system." 

How  sorely  the  English  people  are  pressed  for  circulat- 
ing medium  under  the  exclusive  gold  basis,  will  fully 
appear  from  the  following  statement  made  by  Playfair  in 
the  same  speech: 

"The  liabilities  of  the  banks  of  Great  Britain  to  the 
public  amounted  to  £621,000,000,  or  about  the  amount  of 
the  National  debt  of  England;  but  the  amount  of  coin  or 
bullion  to  meet  this  liability  was  only  i335,000,000;  or  de- 
ducting from  each  side  of  the  account  £8,000,000  locked 
up  in  the  Notes  Department  of  the  Bank  of  England,  it 
was  £27,000,000;  or  only  4i  per  cent  of  liabilities." 


THE    SILVER   PROBLEM.  319 

The  same  motives  actuated  Germany  in  her  cruel  crusade 
against  silver  in  1871-3.  It  was  in  the  interest  of  that  por- 
tion of  her  people  who  had  fixed  incomes,  and  further  to 
avenge  herself  upon  France.  But  the  blow  fell  upon  her 
own  head.  Times  grew  to  be  so  hard  in  Germany,  immed- 
iately after  she  struck  down  her  silver,  that  1,546,000  per- 
sons emigrated  from  that  country  between  the  years  1873 
and  1889,  while  illegitimacy  and  suicides  increased  at  a 
fearful  ratio  during  the  same  period. 

MOTIVE   IN  THE   UNITED    STATES. 

In  1867,  the  international  conference  was  held  in  Paris. 
Samuel  B.  Ruggles,  a  member  of  the  New  York  Chamber 
of  Commerce,  was  a  delegate  to  .  that  conference.  Mr. 
John  Sherman,  then  Chairman  of  the  Senate  Finance  com- 
mittee, was  in  Paris  at  the  same  time  though  he  did  not  at- 
tend the  conference  in  person.  On  the  17th  of  May,  the 
conference  considered  the  ^^possibility  of  a  common  unit  of 
money.''''  Mr.  Sherman's  views  in  favor  of  a  single  gold 
standard  were  submitted  to  the  conference  by  Mr.  Ruggles. 
Mr.  Sherman  was  not  accredited  to  that  conference  by  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  nor  had  he  any  right  whatever 
to  represent  them  there.  For  what  purpose  was  he  in  Paris? 
The  war  was  just  over  and  his  statesmanship  was  needed  at 
home  to  build  up  the  broken  fragments  of  the  union  and  to 
restore  tranquility  to  society. 

One  year  from  the  date  of  this  visit  to  Paris,  Mr.  Sher- 
man made  a  report  to  the  Senate  in  favor  of  ''A  single 
standard  exclusively  of  gold." 

In  the  same  year  he  also  introduced  Senate  Bill  217,  to 
establish  a  single  standard  ''exclusively  of  gold,"  and  pro- 
viding also  for  the  coinage  of  subsidiary  silver  on  Govern- 
ment account.  When  we  consider  that  we  were  then  upon 
an  exclusive  paper  basis,  and  that  we  were  without  gold, 


320  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

and  in  fact,  have  never  had  from  that  day  to  the  present, 
one-third  enough  gold  to  transact  the  business  of  the 
country,  this  is  an  astounding   piece  of  history. 

The  act  of  1873,  which  finally  demonetized  silver,  origi- 
nated, as  stated  by  Mr.  Kelley  in  the  House,  with  the  Treas- 
ury department.  It  was  engineered  through  the  Senate 
by  Mr.  Sherman  and  through  the  House  by  Mr.  Hooper, 
of  Massachussets.  The  bill  contains  sixty-eight  sections 
and  had  a  deceptive  title — "A  bill  revising  the  laws  relating 
to  mints,  assay  offices  and  coinage  of  the  United  States." 
It  contained  provisions  which  no  party  had  ever  declared 
in  favor  of,  which  had  never  been  discussed  in  the  public 
prints,  concerning  which  the  people  were  wholly  unin- 
formed, and  yet  a  bill  affecting  directly  the  welfare  of 
every  inhabitant  of  the  republic.  It  went  through  the  two 
houses  like  a  thief  in  the  night,  making  just  enough  noise 
to  arouse  the  inmates  if  they  had  been  awake,  and  yet  not 
enough  to  attract  the  attention  of  those  who  were  dull  of 
hearing  and  unduly  given  to  slumber. 

While  the  bill  was  pending  in  the  House,  April  19,  1872, 
Mr.  Hooper,  who  seems  to  have  had  control  of  it,  said: 

"The  bill  was  prepared  two  years  ago  and  has  been  sub- 
mitted to  careful  and  deliberate  examination.  It  has  the 
approval  of  nearly  all  the  mint  experts  of  the  country  and 
sanction  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Ernest  Seyd, : 
of  London,  a  distinguished  writer  and  bullionist,  is  now  here" 
and  has  given  great  attention  to  the  subject  of  mints  and 
coinage,  after  examining  the  first  draughts  of  this  bill  made 
various  sensible  suggestions  which  the  committee  accepted 
and  embodied  in  the  bill.  While  the  committee  take  no 
credit  to  themselves  for  the  original  preparation  of  this 
bill,  they  have  given  it  the  most  careful  consideration  and 
have  no  hesitation  in  unanimously  recommending  its  pas- 
sage as  necessary  and  expedient." 

The  character  of  Mr.  Seyd's  "sensible  suggestions  which 
the  committee  accepted  and  embodied  in  the  bill,"  may  be 


THE   SILVER  PROBLEM.  321 

understood  from  the  following,  which  we  take  from  the 
masterly  speech  of  Senator  Daniel,  of  Virginia,  delivered 
in  the  United  States  Senate,  May  24,  1890,  page  5438. 

"I  take  from  the  Bankers'  Magazine  of  August,  1873,  a 
little  extract.     It  says: 

"In  1873,  silver  being  demonetized  in  Germany,  Eng- 
land and  Holland,  a  capital  £100,000  ($500,000)  was  raised, 
and  Ernest  Seyd,  of  London,  was  sent  to  this  country  withJH^ 
this  fund  as  the  agent  of  foreign  bondholders  to  effect  the  — 
same  object." 

"This  is  from  one  of  the  most  respectable  organs  of  the 
money  interest  of  the  United  States,  and  it  announces  the 
fact  that  England  and  Holland  furnished  a  fund  of  half  a 
million  dollars  and  sent  an  emissary  over  to  America  to 
procure  a  result  which  was  effected  in  the  manner  stated." 

The  character  of  the  suggestions  made  by  Mr.  Seyd  a 
which  were  not  "included  in  the  bill"  can  readily  be  conv^ 
jectured. 

Such  are  some  of  the  disgraceful  incidents  connected 
with  the  demonetization  of  silver  in  this  country.  Much 
more  can  and  should  be  told,  but  to  do  so  would  carry  us 
beyond  the  purpose  of  this  chapter.  The  most  wonderful 
consideration  in  connection  with  the  whole  matter  is  that 
the  suffering  people  have  never  as  yet  properly  rebuked 
the  criminal's  who  perpetrated  the  outrage  nor  suitably 
avenged  the  crime. 

The  country  is  familiar  with  the  struggle  to  reinstate 
silver,  and  they  are  aware  of  the  uniform  hostility  of  every 
administration  to  the  faithful  enforcement  of  the  act  of 
February  12,  1878.  This  act  provided  for  the  coinage  of 
not  less  than  two  million  dollars  worth  of  silver  bullion 
per  month  and  not  more  than  four  million  dollars  worth. 
The  country  is  aware  that  the  Secretary  has  uniformly 
coined  the  minimum  instead  of  the  maximum  contemplated 
by  the  law. 

21 


322  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

So  much  of  this  act  as  required  the  Secretary  to  pur- 
chase and  coin  the  bullion  was  repealed  by  the  Fifty-first 
Congress,  and  another  act  was  substituted  which  empowers 
the  Secretary  to  purchase  4,500,000  ounces  of  pure  silver 
per  month,  paying  therefor  in  Treasury  notes  issued  for  the 
purpose,  and  redeemable  upon  presentation  in  coin.  After 
July  1,  1891,  the  Secretary  is  clothed  with  discretion  to 
coin  or  not  to  coin  the  bullion  purchased,  as  he  may 
determine.  Under  this  law  he  is  an  absolute  monarch  con- 
cerning the  coinage  of  silver,  and  an  unfriendly  one  at 
that.  Congress  and  the  people  have  abdicated  in  his  be- 
half. He  is  now  exercising  his  discretion,  just  as  it  was 
expected  he  would,  against  the  people. 

NOTHING  BUT  GOOD  FROM  FREE  COINAGE. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  present  silver  law  provides  for 
the  purchase  of  about  the  entire  present  annual  output  of 
American  silver,  and  yet  its  effect  upon  current  business 
is  scarcely  discernable.  After  deducting  the  amount 
annually  consumed  in  the  arts  in  our  own  country,  the 
American  mines  cannot  more  than  meet  the  demands  of 
the  law. 

One  of  the  statements  constantly  urged  ^to  deter  the 
American  people  from  fully  remonetizing  the  white  metal 
is,  that  we  shall  be  flooded  with  silver;  that  the  circulating 
medium  would  be  unduly  inflated  with  cheap  money  and 
gold  would  depart  from  us.  The  following  extract  which 
we  take  from  the  able  speech  of  Senator  Jones,  before 
referred  to,  covers  this  point  with  such  clearness  that  we 
cannot  refrain  from  inserting  it  here: 

SHALL   WE   BE   FLOODED   WITH   SILVER? 

"We  are  told  that  if  silver  is  given  free  access  to  the 
mints  we  shall  be  flooded  with  it  from  all  parts  of  the 


THE    SILVEK  PKOBLEM.  323 

world.  Does  anybody  show  where  the  flood  of  silver  is  to 
come  from?  Where  are  the  reservoirs  that  contain  it? 
Not  in  England,  where  it  is  difficult  for  the  people  even  to 
get  a  sufficiency  of  it  for  small  change  to  transact  the  busi- 
ness of  the  country;  not  in  Germany,  where  the  scarcity 
of  money  was  so  pressing  that  the  Government  had  to 
abandon  the  idea  of  selling  silver.  Though  the  stock  in 
France  is  large  her  people  will  never  give  it  up.  Silver 
has  been  the  "shield  and  buckler"  of  the  French  Republic. 
All  she  has  is  coined  at  the  ratio  of  fifteen  and  one-half 
ounces  of  silver  to  one  of  gold,  and  its  shipment  to  this 
country  would  involve  a  loss  to  France,  not  only  of  the 
three  per  cent  difference  between  the  French  relation  (15i 
to  1)  and  ours  (which  is  16  to  1),  but  of  three  per  cent  ad- 
ditional in  the  cost  of  gathering  and  shipping  it.  And 
after  that  could  only  exchange  them  for  Treasury  notes. 
The  silver  stock  in  India  and  the  Orient  is  performing 
indispensable  duty  as  money,  and  no  "flood"  of  it  can  be 
expected  from  that  quarter.  From  time  immemorial  India 
has  been  absorbing  all  the  surplus  silver  of  the  world. 
She  has  never  got  so  much  as  to  appease  her  appetite  for 
more.  So  insatiable  is  her  desire  for  that  metal  that  she 
has  long  known  as  the  "Sink  of  Silver."  China  has  not  a 
piece  of  the  metal  that  she  can  dispose  of.  Mexico  has  no 
stock  whatever  of  silver  on  hand,  except  the  limited  num- 
ber of  coined  pieces  forming  her  moderate  money  circula- 
tion, and  not  a  dollar  of  it  can  be  spared.  No  country  of 
Central  or  South  America  has  any  surplus  silver.  Every 
piece  of  coined  silver  in  every  country  in  the  world  is  part 
of  the  monetary  circulation  of  that  country,  and  even  when 
of  short  weight  and  classified  as  a  mere  "token"  is  passing 
at  par  a  full  valued  money .  No  gain  could  possibly  ac- 
crue, therefore,  to  the  owners  of  coined  silver  anywhere  by 
shipping  it  to  this  country  for  any  purpose,  and  there  is  no 
surplus  stock  of  bullion  anywhere. 

"If  anybody  doubts  this  statement  let  him  make  the 
attempt  in  all  the  money  centers  of  the  world  to  buy  from 
accumulated  stock  even  $5,000,000  worth  of  it.  He  will 
fail  to  get  it  in  London,  Paris,  Berlin.  Calcutta,  New  York, 
or  San  Francisco,  or  in  all  combined.  There  is  no  source 
from  which  to  get  silver  except  the  current  supply  from 


324  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

the  mines,  and  whatever  that  is  now  it  is  not  likely  ever 
greatly  to  increase.  The  occupation  of  minino;  is  not  at- 
tractive to  many,  and  in  the  nature  of  the  case  the  number 
who  follow  it  will  always  be  comparatively  few.  The 
Argonauts  of  old  were  but  a  small  band  of  hardy  adven- 
turers; those  of  the  new  era  are  destined  to  bear  no  larger 
proportion  to  the  population.  But  even  were  this  not  so, 
nature  herself  draws  the  line.  To  the  eye  of  the  exper- 
ienced prospector  silver  mines  are  as  discernable  on  the 
surface  of  the  earth  as  are  mountains,  and  the  world  has 
been  explored  in  vain  for  further  "finds."  Those  who 
talk,  therefore,  of  "floods"  of  silver  coming  here  for  coin- 
age simply  show  their  ignorance  of  existing  conditions." 

But  the  advocates  of  the  exclusive  coinage  of  gold  con- 
stantly assert  that  the  silver  dollar  is  under  value — is  a 
"  cheap  dollar."  It  was  not  "  cheap  "  when  it  was  demon- 
etized and  would  not  be  again  if  reinstated.  It  was  three 
per  cent  premium  over  gold  as  the  subjoined  tables  will 
prove.  Its  bullion  value  is  less  than  its  coined  value  for 
the  simple  reason  that  it  is  stricken  down  by  law — stricken 
down  by  a  lot  of  business  assassins  who  wish  to  accumulate 
wealth  by  improper  methods. 

Driven  from  this  field,  the  enemies  of  silver  declare 
vehemently  that  free  coinage  is  in  the  interest  of  bullion 
owners;  that  it  would  be  equivalent  to  a  gift  to  bullion 
holders  equal  to  the  difference  between  the  bullion  value 
and  the  coin  value  of  the  metal.     This  we  deny. 

When  the  owner  of  bullion  takes  it  to  the  mint  and  has 
it  coined  into  dollars,  the  burden  is  then  upon  him  to  spend 
it.  This  will  increase  the  amount  of  money  in  circulation, 
and  this  in  turn  will  stimulate  the  price  of  everything  on 
the  market.  When  the  holder  of  the  new  coin  undertakes 
to  purchase  labor  and  supplies  he  will  find  that  the  prices 
of  these  commodities  haye  advanced  also;  and  so  the 
laborer  and  producer  will  take  the  lion's  share  of  the  value 


THE    SILVER  PKOBLEM.  325 

which  has  been  added  to  silver  by  its  coinage.     The  laws 
of  trade  are  equitable  if  allowed  to  operate  normally. 

THE   FDTUEE    OF    SILVER. 

From  the  Argonaut,  September  1,  1890. 

"Under  this  heading  the  London  Economist  of  August  16, 
publishes  a  letter  from  Ottomar  Haupt,  dated  Paris,  August 
14,  1890.  As  M.  Haupt  is  acknowledged  to  be  one  of  the 
best  authorities  in  Europe  in  monetary  statistics  and  finan- 
cial affairs,  his  figures  of  the  past  can  be  relied  upon,  how- 
ever we  might  regard  his  speculations  in  the  future. 

"The  letter  is  some  two  columns  in  length,  but  I  shall  only 
give  the  first  and  a  portion  of  the  closing  paragraphs.  I 
have  transposed  his  kilograms  into  ounces,  as  more  familiar 
to  us  of  America: 

"At  the  present  moment  when  the  new  American  silver 
bill  comes  into  force,  and  when  consequently  a  fresh  pros- 
pect opens  itself  to  the  whole  silver  question,  it  is  of  great 
importance  to  inquire  what  the  future  of  the  white  metal 
will  be — of  course  the  near  future  only,  as  in  the  course  of 
time  events  may  present  themselves  which  may  once  more 
adversely  influence  the  current  of  things  as  viewed  from  a 
standpoint  based  upon  the  experience  of  the  day. 

"This  is  the  way  in  which  I  estimate  the  yearly  absorp- 
tion of  the  white  metal  for,  say,  three  or  four  years  to  come. 

Countries.  Ounces  Fine  Silver. 

United  States 54,000,000 

India 41,600,000 

China 12,800,000 

Japan 7,080,000 

Cochin,  China 640,000 

Straits  Settlements 3.200,000 

England  and  Colonies 3,200,000 

Austria 3,840,000 

Servia  and  Bulgaria 1,930,000 

Balance  remaining  in  Mexico 1,600,000 

130,480,000 
Estimated  consumption  in  the  arts,  etc 17,600,000 

148,080,000 

"In  other  words,  about  150,000,000  ounces  of  fine  silver 
will  have  to  be  bought  in  some  way  or  other  in  the  different 


326  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

markets  of  the  world,  and,  so  far,  no  other  source  is  left 
open  for  that  purpose  than  the  actual  production  of  the 
mines. 

"At  any  rate,  neither  will  Germany  sell  any  more  of  her 
silver  thalers,  nor  Italy  her  demonetized  Bourbonian  pias- 
tres. As  regards  the  other  countries,  none  will  move  in  the 
silver  question.  Their  coins  of  the  five-francs  type  repre- 
sent the  metal  in  the  market  at  much  above  61  pence  per 
ounce  standard.  The  American  mint  price  works  out  at 
$1.29,  equal  to  59  pence;  to-day  (August  14)  we  are  about 
51  pence.     Who  will  sell  with  such  prospect  before  him  ? 

"A  given  quantity  of  say  150,000,000  ounces  of  fine  sil- 
ver is  required  every  year  in  the  near  future.  What  will  bo 
the  production  of  the  metal  available  in  the  market?  Why, 
according  to  the  best  statistics  published,  all  the  mines  of 
the  world  did  not  produce  more  than  76,000,000  ounces  in 
1887,  110,000,000  in  1888,  and  125,000,000  in  1889.  Where 
is  the  balance  of  say  16,000,000  to  come  from? 

"While  on  the  subject  it  may  be  of  interest  to  give  the 
amount  of  gold  and  silver  in  the  great  National  depositories 
of  Europe  at  latest  date  (August  21,  1890),  according  to  the 
Fmancial  Chronicle  of  New  York,  August  23: 

Bank  of  Gold.  Silver. 

England £33,653,325     

France 53,668,000  £50,757,000 

Germany    27,513,667  13,756,333 

Austria  Hungary 4,475,000  16,536,000 

Netherlands 4,808,000  5,358,000 

Belgium 2,833,000  1,412,000 

"Probably  about  all  of  this  gold  and  silver  in  the  different 
banks  is  coined  money,  most  of  which  has  been  in  use. 

"I  have  in  this  article  given  the  figures  of  production  and 
absorption  as  agreed  upon  by  those  who  are  considered  the 
most  capable  of  rendering  tliem.  It  is  for  others  to  proph- 
esy what  shall  be  the  future,  but  it  certainly  looks  as  though 
the  prospect  for  "the  white  metal"  was  very  flattering." 

Thus  it  is  seen  that  the  apprehension  of  a  disastrous 
influx  of  silver  is  unwarranted  and  silly.  It  is  excited  by 
interested  parties  and  is  without  a  single  fact  in  the  finan- 
cial world  to  support  it.     The  quanity  of  gold  in  the  United 


THE   SILVER  PROBLEM.  327 

States  is  but  trifling.  If  every  dollar  of  it  should  be  dis- 
placed by  silver  the  change  would  never  be  felt  or  noticed 
by  the  people  except  for  the  better.  Once  here,  silver 
would  remain  with  us  like  our  greenbacks,  constituting  a 
part  of  our  home  currency  and  would  perform  some  of  the 
money  work  of  the  country  which  the  sluggard  gold  refuses 
to  do. 

If  foreign  silver  comes  hither,  will  it  be  thrown  into  our 
lap  as  a  gift,  or  will  it,  if  it  comes  at  all,  come  to  pay  for 
our  wares  and  our  produce?  If  coined  at  our  mints  and 
expended  among  our  people,  we  want  to  know,  with  all 
candor,  who  is  going  to  be  injured? 

OUK  FOREIGN   TRADE. 

Another  argument  constantly  made  use  of  by  the  advo- 
cates of  the  single  gold  standard  is  that  without  gold  we 
can  not  carry  on  our  trade  with  foreign  countries. 

This  country  now  produces  nearly  everything  which  it 
consumes;  and  the  balance  of  trade  for  about  fifteen  years 
has  been  largely  in  our  favor;  and  when  we  consider  the 
energy  of  our  people,  the  character  of  our  country  and  the 
variety  of  its  products,  it  is  clear  that  this  state  of  ajBfairs 
will  increase  rather  than  diminish — particularly  as  between 
this  and  gold  using  countries. 

But  nations,  as  a  rule,  buy  what  they  want  with  their 
own  products.  There  can  be  nothing  at  any  time  but  a 
temporary  balance  to  be  paid  in  bullion,  and  this  can 
always  be  met  by  the  yield  from  our  own  mines.  No 
country  has  ever  experienced  any  difficulty  in  carrying  on 
its  foreign  trade  on  account  of  the  character  of  its  money 
system .  England  found  no  difficulty  during  her  twenty- 
five  years  of  specie  suspension,  nor  did  the  United  States 
during  the  period  of  our  exclusive  paper  money.  On  the 
contrary  both  countries  prospered  in  their  foreign  trade 
Deyond  parallal. 


328  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

This  view  is  supported  by  the  very  hiajhest  authority. 

Prof.  Cairnes,  Professor  of  Political  Economy  in  the  CTni- 
versity  of  London,  in  his  able  work  on  "Some  Unsettled 
Questions  in  Political  Economy "  (18T4)  says: 

"  It  appears  to  me  that  the  influence  attributed  by  many 
able  writers  in  the  United  States  to  the  depreciation  of  the 
paper  currency  as  regards  its  effects  on  the  foreign  trade 
of  the  country  is,  in  a  great  degree,  purely  imaginary.  An 
advance  in  the  scale  of  prices,  nrneasured  in  gold,  in  a  coun- 
try, if  not  shared  by  other  countries,  will  at  once  affect 
its  foreign  trade,  giving  an  impulse  to  foreign  importa- 
tions and  checking  the  exportation  of  all  commodities 
other  than  gold.  A  similar  effect  is  very  generally  attrib- 
uted by  American  writers  to  the  action  on  prices  of  the 
greenback  inconvertible  currency. 

"But  it  may  easily  be  shown  that  this  is  a  complete  illu- 
sion. Foreigners  do  not  send  their  products  to  the  United 
States  to  take  back  greenbacks  in  exchange.  The  return 
which  they  look  for  is  either  gold  or  the  commodities  of  the 
country;  and  if  these  have  risen  in  price  in  proportion  as 
the  paper  money  has  been  depreciated,  how  should  the 
advance  in  paper  prices  constitute  an  inducement  for  them 
to  send  their  goods  hither?  The  nominal  gain  in  green- 
backs on  the  importation  is  exactly  balanced  by  the  nomi- 
nal loss  when  those  greenbacks  came  to  be  converted  into 
gold  or  commodities.  The  gain  may,  in  particular  cases, 
exceed  the  loss,  but,  if  it  does,  the  loss  will  also,  in  other 
cases,  exceed  the  gain.  On  the  whole,  and  on  an  average, 
they  cannot  but  be  the  equivalents  of  each  other." 

But  it  is  clear  from  the  facts  laid  before  the  reader  in 
this  chapter  that  the  outside  world  has  no  silver  to  spare. 
It  is  on  the  stretch  for  more.  The  average  annual  product 
of  gold  and  silver  combined  of  all  the  mines  of  the  world, 
amounts  to  less  than  twenty  cents  per  inhabitant  per  year. 

Free  coinage  then,  will  afford  no  adequate  remedy  for 
the  financial  distress  under  which  this  country  is  suffering. 
It  is  clear  that  we  cannot  command  enough  silver  to  afford 
relief.  It  should  be  welcomed  as  a  valuable  auxiliary 
to  our  currency.     It  can  never  be  more.     It  should  be 


THE    SILVER   PROBLEM. 


329 


allowed  to  take  its  place  without  hindrance  in  our  trinity 
of  finance  which,  in  the  present  state  of  public  enlighten- 
ment, should  consist  of  gold,  silver  and  full  legal  tender 
paper,  issued  in  sufficient  quantity  to  conduct  the  current 
business  of  the  country  on  a  cash  basis. 

The  following  tables  which  we  take  from  a  speech  of  the 
Hon.  John  P.  Jones,  to  which  we  have  several  times  had 
occasion  to  refer,  are  fraught  with  information  of  great 
value  to  the  student  of  economic  science: 

Table  showing  the  ratio  of  gold  and  silver  in  various  countries  of  the 
world  up  to  the  Christian  era. 


B.C. 

RATIO. 

1600 

1  to  13.33 

708 

1  to  13.33 

1  to  13.33 

500 

1  to  13.00 

490 

1  to  12.50 

470 

1  to  10.00 

440 

1  to  13.00 

420 

1  to  10.00 

407 

1  to  

400 
400 

1  to  13.33 
1  to  12.00 

400 
400 

1  to  12.00 
1  to  13.50 

404-336 

f  12.00 

1  to-^  13.00 

[13.33 

340 
338-326 
343-323 

300 

1  to  14.00 
1  to  11.50 
1  to  12.50 
1  to  10.10 

207 

1  to  13.70 

100 

1  to  11.91 

66-49 

1  to    8.93 

GO 

I'to  11.90 

29 

1  tol2.00 

AUTHORITIES. 


Inscriptions  at  Karnak;  tribute  lists  of  Thutmosls.  (Bran- 

dis.) 
Cuneiform  inscriptions  on  plates  found  in  foundation  of 

Kliorsabad. 
Ancient  Persian  coins;  gold  darics  at  8.3  grams  =  20  silver 

siglos.  at  5.5  grams. 
Persia.      Darius.       Egyptian    tribute.      Herod.     Ill,  95. 

(Boe3lih.pagel2.) 
Sicily.    Time  of  Gelon.    "At  least"  12.50.    (Boeckh,  page 

44.) 
Doubtful.    Asia  Minor.    Xerxes's  treasure.   (Boeckh,  page 

11.) 
Herodotus'  account  of  Indian  tributes.    360  gold  talents= 

4,680  silver. 
Asia  Minor.    Pay  of  Xenophon's  troops  in  silver  darics. 

(Anab. ;  Boeckh.  page  34.) 
Spurious  and  debased  gold  coins  at  Athens.    (MacLeod, 

Polit.  Econ.,  page  476;  Boeckh,  page  35.) 
Standard  in  Asia,  according  to  Xenophon. 
Standard  in  Greece,  according  to  "  Hipparchus  " ;  attrib- 
uted to  Plato. 

{•Various  authorities  adduced  by  Boeckh. 

1  Values  in  Greece  from  the  Poloponnesian  war  to  the 
!  time  of  Alexander,  according  to  hints  in  Greek  writers. 
I  There  were  variations  under  special  contracts — unit 
i     the  silver  drachma. 

Greece.    Time  of  Demosthenese.    (Boeckh,  page  44. 
Special  contracts  in  Greece. 
Egypt  under  the  Ptolemle-;. 
Greece.    Continued  depression  of  gold,  caused  by  great 

influx  iinder  Alexandria. 
Rome.     (Boeckh,  page  44.)     Gold  scriptulum  arbitrarily 

fixed  at  17.143  for  1. 
Rome.    General  rate  of  gold  pound  to  silver  sesterces  to 

date. 
Rome.    Continued  depression  of  gold,  caused  by  influx  of 

Caesar's  spoil  from  Gaul.    [N.  B.— Ctesar's  headquarters 

were  at  Aquileia,  at  the  head  of  the  Adriatic, where  there 

was  also  a  gold  mine,  which  at  this  period  became  very 

prolific] 
Rome.    "About  the  year  U.  C.  700,"  the  rate  was  11  19-21. 

(Boeckh,  page  44.) 
Rome.    Normal  rate  in  the  last  days  of  the  republic. 


330 


A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 


Table  showing  the  ratio  of  gold  and  silver  in  various  countries  of 
the  world  from  the  opening  of  the  Christian  era  to  the  discov- 
ery of  America. 


A.  D. 


AUTHORITIES. 


1-37 

1  to  10.97; 

37-41 

1  to  12.17| 

54-68 

1  to  11.80 

69-79 

1  to  11.54 

81-96 

1  to  11.30 

138-161 

1  to  11.98 

312 

1  to  14.40 

438 

1  to  14.40 

864 

1  to  12.00 

1260 

1  to  10.50 

1344-1660 

1  to 

1351 

1  to  12.30 

1375 

1  to  12.40 

1403 

1  to  12.80 

1411 

1  to  12.00 

1451 

1  to  11.70 

1463 

1  to  11.60 

1455-1494 

1  to  10.50 

The   silver    coinage    much 
I     debased,  consequently  the 
[     ratio  of  the  metals  pure 
was  about  1  to  11. 


Rome    Bate  under  Augustus  and  Teberius.' 

Rome.    Reign  of  Caligula.     ] 

Rome.    Reign  of  Nero. 

Rome.    Reign  of  Vespasian. 

Rome.    Reign  of  Domitian. 

Rome.    Reign  of  Antoninus. 

Byzantium.    Reign  of  Constantino.    Arbitrary. 

Byzantium  and  Rome.    Theodosian  code.    Arbitrary. 

Probable  ratio,  as  shown  by  the  Edictum  Pistense,  under 
the  Carlovingian  dynasty. 

Average  ratio  in  the  commercial  cities  of  Italy.  Local  or 
doubtful. 

England.  Numerous  mint  indentures  given  in  McLeod's 
Political  Economy,  page  475.  The  ratio,  except  when 
fixed  arbitrarily  and  in  violation  of  market  price, varied 
between  about  1.12  and  1.14  during  the  two  hundred  and 
fifty-seven  years  included  in  this  period. 

Ratio  in  North  Germany,  as  shown  by  the  very  accurate 
rules  of  the  Lubeck  mint,  corroborated  in  the  main  by 
the  accounts  of  the  Teutonic  order  of  Knights,  aver- 
aged in  periods  of  forty  years. 

Ratio  according  to  the  accounts  of  the  Teutonic  Knights. 
As  the  ratio  fixed  in  England  by  numerous  mint  indent- 
ures from  1465  to  1509  was  about  1.12,  this  German  ratio 
is  considered  local  or  doubtful. 


"It  will  thus  be  observed  that  during  the  one  thousand 
four  hundred  and  ninety -two  years  from  the  coming  of 
Christ  to  the  discovery  of  America,  silver  never  went  be- 
low the  ratio  of  14.40  to  one  of  gold. 

"The  relations  which  the  metals  have  borne  to  each 
other  since  the  discovery  of  the  JSTew  W^orld  will  appear 
from  the  following: 

Table  showing  the  relative  values  of  gold  and  silver  in  the  various 
countries  of  the  world  from  the  discovery  of  America  to  1680. 


A.  D. 


RATIO. 


AUTHORITIES. 


1497 

1500 

1551 

1559 

1561 

1575 

1623 

1640 

166511 

1667  1 

16691 

1679  1 

I68OI1 


to  10.70 
to  10.50 
to  11.17 
to  n.41 
to  11.70  I 
to  11.68  i 
to  11.74 
to  13.51 
to  15.10 
to  14.15 
to  15.11 
to  15.00  I 
to  15.40  I 


Spain.    Reign  of  Isabella.    Edict  of  Medina.    Local. 
Germany.    Adam  Riese's  Arithmetic.    Local  or  doubtful. 
Germany.    Imperial  mint  regulations.    Arbitrary  or  local. 
German  Imperial  mint  regulations. 

France.    Mint  regulations. 

Upper  Germany.    Mint  regulations. 

France.    Mint  regulations.    Transition  period. 

France.    Mint  regulations. 

Upper  Germany.    Mint  regulations.    Doubtful. 

Upper  Germany.    Mint  regulations. 

France.    Mint  regulations. 


THE   SILVEE  PKOBLEM, 


331 


TablejShpwing  the  ratio  of  silver  to  1  of  gold  from  1687  to  the  de- 
monetization of  silver  hy  Germany  and  the  United  States,  and  the 
cTosing  of  the  mints  to  its  free  coinage. 

LFrom  the  Report  (1890)  of  the  Director  of  the  U.  S.  Mint  on  the  Production 
of  the  Precious  Metals  In  the  United  States.] 


TEAR. 


1687 

14.94 

1688 

14.94 

1689 

15.02 

1690.. 

15.02 

1691 

14.98 

1692 

14.92 

1693 

14.83 

1694 

14.87 

1695 

15.02 

1696 

15.00 

1697 

15.20 

1698 

15.07 

1699 

14.94 

1700 

14.81 

1701 

15.07 

1702 

15.52 

1703 

15.17 

1704 

15.22 

1705 

15.11 

1706 

15.27 

1707 

15.44 

1708 

15.41 

1709 

15.31 

1710 

15.22 

1711 

15.29 

1712 

15.31 

1713 

15.24 

1714 

15.13 

1715 

15.11 

1716 

15.09 

1717 

15.13 

1718 

15.11 

1719 

15.09 

1720 

15.04 

172J 

15.05 

1722 

15.17 

17ia 

15.20 

1724 

15.11 

1725 

15.11 

1726 

15.15 

1727 

15.24 

1728 

15.11 

1729 

14.92 

1730 

14.81 

1731 

14.94 

1732 

15.09 

1733 

15.18 

ir34 

15.39 

1735 

15.41 

1736 

15.18 

1737 

15.02 

1738 

14.91 

1739 

14.91 

1740 

14.94 

1741 

14.92 

1742 

14.85 

1743. 

14.85 

1744 

14.87 

1745 

14.98 

1746 

15.13 

1747 

15.26 

1748 

15.11 

1749 

14.80 

1750 

14.55 

1751 

14.39 

1752  

14.54 

1753 

14.54 

1754  

14.48 

1755 

14.68 

1756 

14.94 

1757 

14.87 

1758 

14.85 

17.59 

14.15 

1760 

14.14 

1761 

14.54 

1762 

15.27 

1763 

14.99 

1764 

14.70 

1765 

14.83 

1766 

14.80 

1767 

14.85 

1768 

14.80 

1769 

14.72 

1770 

14.62 

1771 

14.66 

1772 

14.52 

1773 

14.62 

1774 

14.62 

1745 

14.72 

1776 

14.55 

1777 

14.54 

1778 

14.68 

1779 

14.80 

1780 

14.72 

1781... 

1782... 

1783... 

1784... 

1795. . . 

1786... 

1787. . . 

1788... 

1789... 

1790... 

1791... 

1792... 

1793... 

1794... 

1795.. 

1796... 

1797.. 

1798... 

1799... 

1800... 

1801... 

1802... 

1803... 

1804... 

1805... 

1806... 

1807... 

1808... 

1809... 

1810... 

1811... 

1812... 

1813... 

1814... 

1815... 

1816... 

1817... 

1818... 

1819... 

1820... 

1821... 

1822.. 

1823... 

1824... 

1825... 

1826... 


14.78 
14.42 
14.48 
14.70 
14.92 
14.96 
14.92 
14.65 
14.75 
15.04 
15.05 
15.17 
15.00 
15.37 
15.55 
15.65 
15.41 
15.59 
15,74 
15.68 
15.46 
15.26 
15.41 
15.41 
15.79 
15.52 
15.43 
16.08 
15.96 
15.77 
15.53 
16.11 
16.25 
15.04 
15.26 
15.28 
15.11 
15.35 
15.33 
15.62 
15.95 
15.80 
1.5.^4 
15.82 
15.70 
15.76 


1827 
1828 
1829 
1830 
1831 

1832  , 

1833  , 

1834  , 

1835  . 

1836  . 
18.^7  . 

1838  , 

1839  . 

1840  . 

1841  . 

1843  . 
1843. 

1844  . 
1345  . 
1846. 
1847. 
1848. 
1849. 
1850. 

1851  . 

1852  . 

1853  . 

1854  , 

1855  . 
1856 

1857  . 

1858  , 

1859  . 

1860  , 
1801  . 
1862  . 
1863 
1864  , 
1865 
1866, 
1807  . 
1868  , 
1869 

1870  , 

1871  . 

1872  , 


15.74 
15.78 
15.78 
15.82 
15.72 
15.73 
15.93 
15.73 
15.80 
15.72 
15.83 
15.85 
15.62 
15.62 
15.70 
15  87 
15.93 
15.85 
15.92 
15.90 
15.80 
15.85 
15.78 
15.70 
15.46 
15.59 
15.33 
15.3-J 
15.38 
15.38 
15.27 
15.38 
15.19 
15.29 
15.50 
15.35 
15.37 
15.37 
15.44 
15.43 
15.57 
15.59 
15.60 
15.57 
15.57 
15.63 


[Note.— From  1687  to  1832  the  ratios  are  taken  from  Dr.  A.  Soetheer;  from 
1833  to  1878  from  Pixley  and  Abell's  tables;  and  from  1879  to  1889  from  daily 
cablegrams  from  London  to  the  Bureau  of  the  Mint.l 


332 


A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 


Table  showing  the  ratio  of  silver  to  1  oj  gold  since  the  demonetiza- 
tion of  silver  by  Oermany  and  the  United  States,  and  the  closing 
oJ  all  mints  of  the  western  wofid  to  its  free  coinage. 


YEAR. 

RATIO. 

YEAR. 

RATIO. 

1873 

15.92 

16.17 
16.59 
17.88 
17.22 
17.94 
18.40 
18.05 
18.16 

1882 

18.19 

1874    

1883 

18.64 

1875 

1884 

18.57 

1876 

1885 

19.41 

1877 

1886 

20.78 

1878 

1887 

21.13 

1879 

1888 

21.99 

1880 

1889 

22.10 

1881 

"The  foregoing  jfigures  show  that  it  is  only  since  the'legis- 
lative  proscription  of  silver  by  Germany  and  the  United 
States,  and  the  closing  of  all  the  European  mints  to  its 
coinage,  that  any  material  change  took  place  in  the  ratio 
between  the  two  metals,  which  conclusively  demonstrates 
that  the  present  divergence  in  the  relative  values  of  the 
two  metals  is  directly  duetto  the  legal  ^  outlawry  of  silver 
and  not  to'natural  'causes."  '"' 


CHAPTER  IX. 


NATIONAL    DEBTS. 

When  misfortune  befalls  an  individual  and  he  is  forced 
f  o  make  expenditures  which  exceed  both  his  store  of  money 
and  available  resources,  he  is  likely  to  become  the  lictim 
of  avarice  and  fall  into  the  clutches  of  those  who  possess 
that  which  he  does  not — ready  cash.  Few  men  under  such 
circumstances  are  strong  enough  to  avoid  this  common 
fate.  An  individual  can  simply  direct  his  own  actions  and 
is  only  partially  Sovereign  over  himself.  As  to  all  other 
persons  he  must  control  them,  if  at  all,  by  contract  or  per- 
suasion. But  an  independent  and  powerful  Nation,  if 
wisely  governed,  is  not  subject  to  such  limitations  and  vicis- 
situdes. The  Nation  is  supreme  and  rules  over  the  whole 
body  as  an  individual  controls  his  own  person.  It  com- 
mands and  every  member,  the  head,  the  eye,  the  ear,  the 
tongue,  the  hands,  the  feet — the  whole  organic  structure 
must  obey.  No  member  of  the  body  politic  can  become 
so  great  as  to  rise  above,  none  so  insignificant  as  to  fall 
below  the  control  of  the  Sovereign  will.  If  circumstances 
warrant,  the  Sovereign  hand  can  be  laid  upon  the  persons, 
the  property,  the  commerce,  and  even  the  lives  of  its  sub- 
jects. That  power  so  vast  should  be  exercised  with  pru- 
dence and  caution  none  will  gainsay.  But  Government 
was  created  to  meet  and  master  emergencies  with  which 
individual  powers  and  capacities  are  inadequate  to  cope. 
Each  individual  member  of  society  consented  to  the  full 


334  A   CALL  TO   ACTION. 

exercise  of  this  power  when  his  citizenship  began,  and  this 
consent  can  neither  be  withdrawn  nor  is^ored;  neither  can 
the  primal  functions  of  Government  ever  be  rightfully  sur- 
rendered. What  moral  right  have  the  rulers  and  lawmak- 
ers of  a  Sovereign  and  Independant  Nation  to  refuse  to  ex- 
ercise the  legitimate  powers  entrusted  to  their  care  ?  What 
right  have  they  to  dethrone  their  Sovereign  and  send  him 
forth  into  the  market  as  an  individual  to  beg  where  he 
should  command,  or  to  borrow  where  he  should  create  ?  It 
is  worse  than  the  sale  of  the  purple  to  the  highest  bidder;  it 
is  equivalent  to  advertising  for  a  despot,  an  offer  in  advance 
to  present  him  with  the  purple  gratis  when  he  shall  appear, 
and  finally  to  put  the  people  under  tribute  to  him  and  his 
successors  forever. 

The  policy  of  public  borrowing  is  subversive  of  sover- 
eignty and  is  as  illogical  as  it  is  full  of  evil  consequences. 
!No  other  system  could  possibly  be  devised  that  is  so  well 
calculated  to  enthrone  the  capitalistic  classes  among  the 
nations  of  the  earth.  If  a  Nation  becomes  involved  in  war 
when  its  current  revenues  and  available  resources,  as  ordi- 
narily understood,  are  inadequate  to  meet  the  strain,  it 
must,  nevertheless,  have  money  or  perish  from  the  face  of 
the  earth.  Resort  is  generally  had  to  borrowing,  either 
from  its  own  citizens  or  from  foreign  capitalists.  This  im- 
pUes  a  contract  into  which  the  capitalist,  of  his  own  voK- 
tion,  may  or  may  not  enter.  It  implies  the  right  on  his 
part  to  prescribe  the  terms  on  which  the  loan  shall  be  made 
and  the  right  to  refuse  the  loan  altogether.  It  places  the 
life  of  the  Nation  at  his  mercy  and  the  relation  of  Sovereign 
and  subject  is  lost  sight  of  completely.  In  fact,  the  Sov- 
ereign becomes  the  subject,  and  the  subject  the  Sovereign. 
They  exchange  places  and  a  new  regime  follows  as  certainly 
as  if  one  king  should  abdicate  and  another  be  enthroned. 
When  the   sovereignty   of  the   people  is  thus  displaced, 


NATIONAL   DEBTS.  335 

either  by  voluntary  surrender  or  by  the  gradual  and  cun- 
ning usurpation  of  capital,  it  is  rarely  ever  regained — never 
except  by  upheavals  which  convulse  society  from  center  to 
circumference.  The  importance  of  these  observations,  as 
well  as  the  evils  which  result  when  they  are  disregarded 
will  become  apparent  as  we  advance.  They  are  the  very 
fountain  head  of  the  political  and  social  convulsions  through 
which  this  Nation  is  now  passing. 

PROVERB    OF    THE   WISE   KING. 

King  Solomon  certainly  had  a  prevision  of  the  present 
era  of  debt,  and  all  the  reckless  borrowing  nations  of  the 
nineteenth  century  must  have  been  passing  in  mournful 
procession  before  him  when  he  declared  "The  rich  rule 
over  the  poor  and  the  borrower  is  servant  to  the  lender." 
During  the  latter  half  of  the  present  Century — since  1848 
— the  nations  of  the  earth  have  universally  become  bor- 
rowers; and  this  in  the  face  of  increasing  riches  gathered 
from  vast  gold  fields  in  the  eastern  and  western  hemi- 
spheres, and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  nature  is  more 
bountiful  than  ever  before  and  has  revealed  to  man  the 
combinations  which  enable  him  to  open  the  vaults  of  the 
universe  and  help  himself  to  her  inexhaustible  treasures. 

England  and  Holland  were  greatly  in  debt  prior  to  the 
date  named  ;  but  since  1848  all  nations  have  followed  their 
example  and  plunged  recklessly  into  debt.  A  Government 
is  intangible  and  cannot  be  enslaved.  Hence  the  yoke  un- 
fortunately falls  to  the  lot  of  individual  subjects — the  poor. 
Nor  does  it  make  the  slightest  difference  whether  the 
Nation  as  such  is  the  borrower,  or  whether  it  is  the  great 
body  of  the  people  who  become  indebted  in  their  indi- 
vidual capacity  or  both  ;  the  same  servitude,  more  or  less 
galling,  must  inevitably  result.  Pitiable  indeed  is  the 
condition  of  that  country  where  both  extensive  public  and 


336  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

a^eneral  private  indebtedness  are  co-existent.  It  is  a 
lamentable  fact  as  we  shall  see  further  on,  that  to-day  the 
Government  of  every  debtor  people  on  our  planet  is  in 
the  hands  of  the  monied  classes — the  usurers.  Capitalists 
have  entrenched  themselves  within  the  governments  of  the 
world  and  wield  the  machinery  of  state  as  the  policeman 
does  the  baton  and  the  revolver — to  inspire  fear,  control 
the  refractory  and  suppress  revolt.  This  universal  domi- 
nation of  capitalists  over  modern  nations  accounts  for  the 
readiness  with  which  public  loans  are  effected.  The  loan 
is  made  to  a  corporation  controlled  by  the  lender,  and  the 
supervision  of  his  wealth  remains  practically  in  his  own 
hands.  The  lien  which  he  secures  attaches  to  the  total 
wealth  of  the  country,  is  exempt  from  taxes  and  is  more 
stable  than  that  which  individuals  can  proffer;  while  the 
methods  of  enforcement  are  inexpensive  and  more  secure. 
The  feudal  system  and  the  thirst  for  military  achieve- 
ments which  animated  the  leading  spirits  of  the  world  for 
so  many  centuries  were  the  complements  of  each  other, 
and  they  both  finally  perished  together.  Their  overthrow 
did  not  take  place  at  the  same  time  in  all  parts  of  Europe, 
and  in  fact  was  not  fully  accomplished  until  the  fall  of  the 
first  l^apoleon.  It  received  its  first  great  wound,  however, 
when  William  III.  ascended  the  English  throne  in  the  lat- 
ter half  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  granted  political 
freedom  to  the  capitalistic  classes.  This  was  the  victory 
of  aristocracy  over  monarchy  and  introduced  a  new  factor 
into  the  governments  of  the  world.  Knighthood  com- 
menced to  wane  and  the  landed  and  mercantile  classes 
rapidly  rose  into  importance  and  demanded  that  govern- 
ments should  be  administered  in  their  interest  instead  of 
in  the  interest  of  the  monarch.  They  succeeded.  Then 
came  the  perils  of  a  standing  army  and  a  National  debt. 


NATIONAL   DEBTS.  337 

From  the  Norman  Conquest  down  to  the  accession  of 
Charles  II.  Britain  manao^ed  to  pay  her  way  from  revenues 
derived  from  lands  reserved  to  the  Crown  and  allotted  on 
conditions  of  feudal  service,  and  by  direct  levies  on  the 
people  at  large.  If  the  King's  expenditures  exceeded  the 
revenues  the  excess  was  called  "The  King's  debt."  It  was 
not  until  William  III.  that  it  was  changed  into  the  "National 
debt"  and  the  funding  system  originated. 

That  "fiscal  monster,"  to  use  the  language  of  Mr. 
McQueen,  an  eminent  reform  writer  in  England,  known  as 
the  British  debt,  took  its  rise  in  1694.  On  the  27th  day  of 
July  of  that  year.  Parliament  granted  a  charter  to  the 
Bank  of  England  in  return  for  an  insignificant  loan,  as 
we  have  observed  in  a  former  chapter,  which  the  Com- 
pany advanced  to  the  Government.  This  institution  has 
since  increased  its  wealth  in  proportion  to  the  increase 
of  the  National  debt.  The  charter  stipulated  that  at 
any  time  after  the  first  day  of  August,  1705,  upon  twelve 
months'  notice  being  given,  and  upon  repayment  of  the 
loan,  with  all  arrears  of  interest,  their  charters  should 
cease.  It  proved  to  be  a  loan  in  perpetuity.  Numerous 
extensions  of  the  charter  followed  and  each  extension  was 
in  return  for  :in  additional  loan.  It  is  impossible  to  either 
adequately  portray  or  fully  conceive  the  influence  which 
the  debt  of  England  has  had  upon  the  human  race.  Its 
lines  have  gone  out  in  all  the  earth.  For  nearly  two  cent- 
uries the  Bank  of  England  has  wielded  the  fiscal  scepter 
of  the  world  by  controlling  British  securities  and  those  of 
other  nations.  Its  Board  of  Directors  holds  both  the 
sword  and  the  purs-.  They  in  reality  declare  war  and 
conclude  peace.  No  Ministry  would  presume  to  enter 
upon  any  great  national  enterprise  in  peace  or  campaign 
in  war,  without  first  consulting  the  managers  of  this  insti- 
tution.    Together  with  the  Stock  Exchange  and  Royal  Ex- 

22 


338  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

change,  which  are  its  offspring,  this  bank  has  become  in 
fact  both  Parliament  and  King.  It  makes  the  laws  and 
repeals  or  executes  them  at  pleasure. 

When  it  became  known  that  the  bank  was  permitted  by 
the  terms  of  its  charter  to  deal  in  public  securities  of  all 
kinds,  wealthy  Jews  and  other  capitalists  flocked  to  the 
metropolis  from  v.]l  parts  of  Europe.  They  carried  on 
the  business  of  .st'x-k-jobbing  within  the  building  occupied 
by  the  bank.  Finally,  in  lYOO,  when  their  number  and 
transactions  became  so  large  as  to  encumber  the  bank,  they 
retreated  to  "  Change  Alley,"  where  they  continued  to 
carry  on  their  business.  Finally  a  building  known  as  the 
"Stock  Exchange,"  was  erected  in  the  vicinity  of  the  bank 
and  near  the  Royal  Exchange,  the  three  forming  a  financial 
trinity  whose  influence  is  felt  in  every  part  of  the  world. 
For  many  years  after  the  accession  of  William  III.  the 
commercial  spirit  extended  but  slowly  among  surrounding 
Nations.  During  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne,  however,  it 
received  a  vital  impulse.  The  Duke  of  Marlborough,  the 
most  noted  chieftain  of  that  time,  became  Captain  General 
of  all  the  liritish  forces.  He  was  accompanied  in  his  expe- 
ditions by  the  wealthy  Jew,  Medina,  who  is  said  to  have 
amassed  immense  riches  by  rapid  dispatches  following  the 
great  victories  of  the  Duke  at  Venloo,  Liege,  Stevenswaert, 
Blenheim,  Eamillies,  Oudenard  and  Malplaquet. 

The  English  debt  is  now,  in  round  numbers,  $4,000,000,- 
000,  reckoned  in  our  money,  and  is  destined  to  continually 
increase.  National  expenditures  in  England  usually  exceed 
the  revenues,  and  hence,  the  extinguishment  of  the  debt  is 
never  in  modern  times,  contemplated.  Through  ever}' 
reign  it  overshadows  the  industrial  classes  like  a  deadly 
upas,  but  its  fruitage  falls  like  manna  from  heaven  to  re- 
fresh and  feed  an  idle  aristocracy.  This  is  the  peril  which 
now  confronts  us  if  our  revenues  are  to  be  reduced  below 


NATIONAL   DEBTS.  339 

the  demands  of  current  expenditures  and  the  requirements 
of  the  sinking  fund. 

Yattel,  Philmore,  and  the  whole  line  of  writers  upon 
international  law  declare  if  one  Nation  refuses  to  pay  a 
debt,  repair  an  injury  or  give  satisfaction  to  another, 'the  lat- 
ter may  seize  property  belonging  to  the  former  and  retain 
it  until  the  oflPending  Nation  atones  in  full.  These  writers 
further  declare  that  Nations  may  also  rightfully  do  this  to 
protect  their  subjects  and  enforce  the  performance  of  jus- 
tice when  only  the  rights  of  private  citizens  are  involved. 

These  considerations  involve  political  consquences  of  the 
most  serious  and  far-reaching  character.  The  British  Gov- 
ernment has  repeatedly  appointed  commissions  with  the 
view  of  protecting  private  investors  and  dispatched  them 
to  foreign  countries  to  investigate  the  management  of 
local  finances,  with  instructions  to  report  their  findings  to 
Parliament.  Such  a  commission,  consisting  of  twelve  emi- 
nent personages,  was  appointed  in  February,  1875,  at  the 
instance  of  the  London  Stock  Exchange,  and  various  private 
citizens.  Their  report,  which  fills  six  volumes  nearly  as 
large  as  a  volume  of  our  Congressional  Record,  is  replete 
with  warning  to  the  world,  and  affords  the  student  of  cur- 
rent history  a  clear  understanding  of  the  direction  in  which 
modern  Governments  are  drifting. 

Egypt  furnishes  a  melancholy  instance  of  the  evils  of 
public  debt.  Under  the  extravagant  administration  of 
Ishmael  Pacha,  she  had  borrowed  extensively  from  the  sub- 
jects of  England,  France  and  Germany.  Payments  were 
not  prompt,  which  caused  complications  to  arise,  and  at  the 
request  of  the  Khedive  a  special  commission  was  appointed 
by  the  British  Government  to  examine  into  the  financial 
status  of  the  country.  A  report  was  made  in  1876,  but  the 
recommendations  were  not  satisfactory  to  the  French  finan- 
cial houses,  and  were  rejected.     Shortly  thereafter,  at  the 


340  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

instance  of  the  "Council  of  foreign  bond-holders,"  Mr. 
Goshen  and  M.  Joubert,  proceeded  to  Egypt  and  brought 
the  Government  to  terms.  The  Khedive  consented  to  sell 
his  estates  to  insure  the  payment  of  the  loan  of  1870,  and 
for  the  other  loans  of  1862,  1868  and  1872,  the  railways 
were  placed  under  the  control  of  a  commission  consisting 
of  two  Englishmen,  one  Frenchman  and  two  Egyptians. 
Then  in  1878,  the  Rothchilds  of  London  and  Paris,  made 
another  loan  of  £8,500,000  based  upon  the  family  property 
of  the  Khedive  which  he  transferred  to  the  state.  The  next 
year  Ishmael  Pacha  was  forced  to  abdicate  and  Prince 
Tewfik  was  formally  invested  with  power,  and  the  rule  of 
the  usurer  was  made  complete  in  the  ancient  empire  of  the 
Ptolemies.  The  entire  administration  of  the  country  was 
thrown  into  the  hands  of  England  and  France,  through 
two  Comptrollers  General.  The  Egyptian  debt  question 
agitated  European  politics.  Germany,  Austria-Hungary 
and  Italy  were  invited  to  participate  in  the  general  division 
of  Egyptian  epoils.  This  humiliation  was  resented  by  the 
National  party,  and  headed  by  Arabi  Pacha  it  rose  in  re- 
bellion. But  this  gallant  leader  and  his  little  army  of  pov- 
erty-stricken followers  were  soon  brought  to  terms  by 
English  guns,  and  an  armed  occupation  of  their  country  by 
a  foreign  power,  quickly  ensued.  The  principality  of  Tu- 
nis, in  North  Africa,  furnishes  another  example.  Her 
finances  are  regulated  by  a  syndicate  of  English,  French 
and  Italian  bondholders,  who  are  self-appointed,  and  yet 
their  salaries  are  drawn  from  the  Tunisian  treasury.  Other 
examples  might  be  readily  given,  but  enough  has  been  said 
to  indicate  that  Public  borrowing  and  Popular  liberty  are 
not  likely  to  flourish  well  together. 

The  civilized  Governments  of  our  day  are  struggling 
under  an  indebtedness  computed  at  $30,000,000,000.  It 
will  be  observed  that  this  sum  does  not  include  local,  cor- 


NATIONAL   DEBTS.  341 

porate  or  individual  obligations  of  any  kind,  the  sum  total 
of  which  is  well  nigh  incalculable.  The  enormity  of  this 
burden  of  public  debt  becomes  apparent  when  we  reflect 
that  it  constitutes  a  mortgage  of  $800  upon  each  square 
mile  of  territory  over  which  the  various  civilized  Govern- 
ments extend,  and  an  indebtedness  of  about  $22  for  every 
inhabitant  of  the  earth  young  and  old. 

The  interest  upon  this  vast  indebtedness,  calculated  at  5 
per  cent  per  annum,  exceeds  the  sum  of  $4,000,000  per  day, 
and  to  simply  pay  the  interest  requires  the  continuous  labor 
of  over  4,000,000  day-laborers  earning  the  average  per 
diem  wage  now  paid  among  these  borrowing  Nations. 
Prior  to  1848,  as  has  been  already  intimated  the  public 
debts  of  the  world  were  comparatively  small,  and  amounted 
to  only  about  eight  and  a  half  billion  dollars.  The  Civil 
war  in  the  United  States,  the  Austro-German  war,  the 
Paraguayan  war,  the  Franco-German  war  and  the  sudden 
and  unlimited  resort  to  credit  among  all  Nations,  furnish  a 
ready  explanation  of  the  enormous  increase  above  stated, 

Mr.  Henry  C.  Adams,  in  his  work  entitled  "Public 
Debts,"  published  in  1887,  states  that  in  1862  there  were 
quoted  upon  the  London  Stock  Exchange,  foreign  stocks 
to  the  amount  of  £697,830,000,  while  the  quotations  of  ten 
years  later  showed  the  same  class  of  securities  to  have  ex- 
panded to  the  enormous  figure  of  £2,430,000,000.  At  the 
present  time  over  one  hundred  Sovereign  States,  and  fifty 
which  are  quasi- Sovereign,  daily  offer  their  public  securi- 
ties for  sale  in  the  London  market.  The  spectacle  is  here 
presented  of  the  Nations  of  the  earth  reduced  to  penury 
and  bankruptcy  through  the  machinations  of  individual 
capitalists — of  a  small  coterie  of  usurers  being  wealthier, 
or  at  least  more  powerful  in  financial  affairs,  than  the  whole 
body  of  the  people  backed  by  their  Governments.  In  fact 
this  class  of  ^jersons  rule  and  administer  the  Governments 


342  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

of  the  earth  in  their  own  interest.  Usury  sits  enthroned 
throughout  the  earth  and  wields  universal  empire. 

The  corporal  slavery  of  the  olden  time  had  only  a  local 
habitation.  It  has  given  place  to  the  new  servitude  which 
is  more  universal  and  equally  cruel,  and  it  is  far  more  econ- 
omical and  profitable  for  the  master. 

The  following  table  which  we  take  from  Professor 
Adam's  work  above  referred  to  exhibits  in  a  startling  man- 
ner the  growth  of  the  public  indebtedness  of  the  world: 

1714 , $  1,500,000,000 

1793 2,500,000,000 

1820 7,750,000,000 

1848 8,650.000,000 

1863 13,750,000,000 

1873 23,025,000,000 

1883 26,970,000,000 

According  to  American  Almanac: 
1889 33,317,336,421 

The  private  debts  of  the  world  can  only  be  estimated. 
That  excellent  authority,  Sir  Moreton  Frewen,  estimates 
the  public  and  private  debts  of  the  people  of  Great  Britain 
at  £4,000,000,000  or  nearly  $20,000,000,000. 

In  a  note  found  on  page  448  of  Dr.  Denslow's  treatise 
on  Political  Economy  we  find  the  following: 

"The  Iron  Age,  referring  to  an  address  to  the  National 
Board  of  Trade  by  Mr.  Price,  quotes  Lord  Derby  as  hav- 
ing predicted  that  European  nations  must  repudiate.  The 
annual  burden  of  $800,000,000  of  interest  is  a  load  they 
cannot  carry.  Spain,  Portugal,  Austria,  and  Greece  are 
bankrupt;  Russia  and  Italy  are  withont  credit;  and  the 
great  states  of  Great  Britain,  France  and  Holland  are  ex- 
hausting every  measure  of  taxation  to  maintain  solvency 
and  credit." 

THE   UNITED    STATES. 

Let  US  now  look  into  the  situation  in  our  own  country  in 
this  respect.  In  point  of  age  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  is  but  an  infant.     Many  of  the  great  nations 


NATIONAL   DEBTS.  343 

of  the  earth  now  existing,  had  passed  through  centuries  of 
alternate  peace  and  war  long  before  America,  the  lost 
Atlantis,  was  found.  Our  expanse  of  territory  would 
afford  homes  for  five  times  our  present  population,  and 
they  could  subsist  in  security  and  in  the  enjoyment  of 
peace  and  plenty.  The  restless  and  sleepless  seas  stand 
sentinel  to  guard  our  repose  and  to  shield  us  from  invasion . 
Our  resources  are  unexampled  in  the  history  of  any  nation 
known  to  recorded  history.  Added  to  our  natural  and 
acquired  advantages  we  have  a  Democratic  form  of  Gov- 
ernment barely  a  century  old  which  was  especially  insti- 
tuted and  constructed  to  avoid  the  distressing  conditions  of 
poverty  and  misery  which  result  to  the  mass  of  mankind 
from  mal-administration  of  despotic  and  aristocratic  forms 
of  Government.  The  bounties  of  Providence  and  the 
wise  forethought  of  the  framers  of  our  Government  seem 
to  have  wrought  in  unison  to  make  our  lot  exceptionally 
favorable.  IS'otwithstanding  all  this,  however,  we  have 
the  leprosy  of  debt,  the  curse  of  wretchedness  in  the 
midst  of  plenty,  the  spectacle  of  poverty  surrounded  by 
unexampled  riches,  of  hunger  abiding  as  next  door  neigh- 
bor of  abundance,  of  food  decaying  for  the  want  of  some- 
one to  eat  it,  in  sight  of  those  who  are  perishing  for  the 
necessities  of  life,  of  nakedness  in  sight  of  great  store- 
houses filled  with  raiment — all  these  sickening  and  per- 
plexing evils  have  come  hither  to  plague  us  as  they  have 
scourged  all  nations  before  our  time.  Dives  and  Lazarus 
are  both  with  us  and  the  latter  is  expected  to  be  content 
with  the  crumbs  which  fall  from  the  rich  man's  table. 
With  these  glaring  facts  before  us  it  is  the  solemn  duty  of 
the  men  and  women  of  this  generation  to  inquire  diligently 
whether  there  be  not  some  radical  defect  in  the  machinery 
of  our  Government  or  else  in  the  very  organic  structure  of 
society  itself.     It  cannot  longer  be  postponed  if  we  would 


344  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

avoid  the  perils  of  self  invited  chaos  and  the  terrors  of 
impending  revolution.  Dr.  Denslow's  estimate  of  indebt- 
edness in  the  United  States  in  the  year  1887,  was  as  follows: 

Present  National  debt,  December  1,  1887. . . .  $1,675,817,660 

State 226,596,594 

County  and  municipal 821,486,447 

Railway 4,163,640,144 

Banking 4,581,706,203 

Private  banking 1,500,000,000 

Record 6,000.000,000 

Mercantile 3,000,000,000 

Individual,  otherwise  than  above 6,000,000,000 

Aggregate $27,969,247,048 

This  total  is  more  than  one-half  of  the  entire  census  val- 
uation of  1880.  If  our  population  is  now  64,000,000  and 
our  indebtedness  has  increased  in  like  ratio,  it  means  a  per 
capita  burden  greater  than  the  average  income  of  the  family. 
Six  per  cent,  annual  interest  upon  this  vast  sum  is  $1,678,- 
154,822.88 — a  sum  almost  equal  to  our  total  annual  increase 
of  wealth. 

The  total  assessed  value  of  the  property  of  the  United 
States  in  1880,  for  purposes  of  taxation  was  $16,802,993,- 
543.00.  In  1888,  according  to  the  best  authorities,  the 
assessed  value  in  thirty-eight  states  was  $22,637,884,298.  It 
is  safe  to  assume  that  for  any  increase  in  wealth  since  these 
periods  there  has  been  a  corresponding  increase  of  debt; 
and  it  is  also  entirel}''  safe  to  conclude,  in  the  light  of  re- 
cent census  investigations,  that  the  indebtedness  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States  equals  the  total  assessed  value 
of  the  entire  property  of  the  country.  Besides  this,  the 
above  estimate  of  the  average  rate  of  annual  interest  (six 
per  cent.)  is  believed  to  be  greatly  below  the  real  interest 
charge,  and  we  have  not  estimated  the  increase  of  interest 
through  compounding.  The  influences  and  causes  which 
have  entailed  upon  the  American  people  this  blighting 
curse  and  crushing  burden  were  examined  in  our  chapter 
on  Finance  in  War  and  Peace. 


CHAPTKR   X. 


FINANCE  AND  OWNERSHIP  OF  LAND. 

,The  most  disastrous  and  discouraging  effects  of  an  evil 
financial  system  always  make  their  appearance  at  the  cen- 
ters of  social  life — the  home  and  the  fireside — the  most 
sacred  places  on  earth. 

In  modern  life  every  respectable  person  is  expected  to 
have  two  things — a  definite  abiding  place  and  money  to  pay 
current  expenses-  If  long  deprived  of  these  essentials  he 
becomes  an  outcast  and  a  pauper.  Nothing  can  be  more 
cruel  than  an  economic  condition  which  makes  it  difficult 
for  persons,  no  matter  how  humble,  to  either  retain  or 
secure  these  indispensable  auxiliaries  to  life,  comfort  and 
respectability.  Whenever,  in  a  populous  Nation,  agricul- 
tural pursuits  become  of  secondary  importance  as  a  means 
of  acquiring  wealth,  it  may  be  set  down  as  certain  that  the 
callings  which  have  risen  above  it  are  operating  under 
some  artificial  stimulus  which  is  abnormal  and  unjust.  The 
stream  and  its  fountain  can  never  change  their  normal 
relations  to  each  other  without  the  application  of  some  for- 
eign force;  and  when  the  disturbing  agency  is  removed 
natural  relations  will  quickly  be  renewed.  The  earth  is 
the  great  storehouse  of  wealth  and  those  who  toil  upon  it 
create  the  riches  of  the  world  and  make  them  available  to 
the  human  race.  The  cultivation  of  the  soil  should  be  and 
in  fact  is,  under  natural  conditipns,  the  surest  road  to  opu- 
lence known  among  men.     Under  just  relations  it  would 


346  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

be  impossible  to  impoverish  this  calling,  for  it  feeds, 
clothes  and  shelters  the  human  family. 

But  production  sug2;ests  commerce,  and  commerce  calls 
for  certain  instrumentalities  without  which  it  cannot  be 
carried  on.  Chief  among  these  is  money.  This  important 
agent  bears  the  same  relation  to  industry  that  steam  does 
to  the  locomotive,  blood  to  the  animal  economy,  or  oil  to 
machinery.  If  money  is  scarce  it  will  be  hard  to  get;  and 
when  hard  to  get  it  is  always  dear,  and  the  scarcer  the 
dearer.  Dear  money  means  cheap  property,  and  the 
dearer  the  money  the  cheaper  the  property.  Under  such 
circumstances,  the  profits  of  labor  are  shifted  from  the 
hands  of  those  who  create  the  wealth  to  the  coffers  of  those 
who  control  the  money.  The  process  is  simple  and  within 
the  comprehension  of  all  who  care  to  think . 

When  prices  are  reduced  a  given  per  cent  the  money  in 
the  country  is  increased  in  purchasing  power  in  precisely 
the  same  ratio.  If  prices  are  reduced  one-half  the  ready 
cash  of  the  capitalist  is  practically  doubled.  If  he  is 
actively  using  $100,000  in  business,  $50,000  will  now  answer 
his  purpose  and  the  remaining  $50,000  is  released  and  be- 
comes surplus  capital  which  he  may  employ  in  some  other 
way.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  $50,000  have  been  taken 
from  labor  and  from  property  holders  and  given  to  the 
money  owner.  If  this  relation  continues  for  any  consider- 
able period  the  disease  becomes  chronic  and  extends  to  the 
soil.  When  no  longer  able  to  meet  current  expenses  and 
keep  up  repairs  from  the  income  of  the  farm,  the  disap- 
pointed husbandman  is  forced  to  borrow  to  meet  his  daily 
wants.  The  distress  being  universal  borrowing  becomes 
general  and  the  land  itself  is  pledged  for  the  payment  of 
the  money  borrowed  —  principal  and  interest — the  latter 
being  generally  in  excess  of  the  annual  net  returns  of  the 
farm. 


FINANCE   AND   OWNEKSHIP   OF   LAND.  347 

Now  if  the  circulating  medium  continues  scarce  and  pop- 
ulation multiplies  the  depression  must  grow  severer  from 
year  to  year.  If  an  occasional  bad  crop  intervenes  imme- 
diate disaster  is  inevitable.  The  desire  to  escape  from  the 
calamitous  situation  and  to  save  something  from  the  wreck 
causes  every  mortgaged  farmer  to  offer  his  land  for  sale. 
He  must  have  money  even  if  he  is  forced  to  give  his  share 
of  the  earth  in  exchange  for  it.  Meanwhile  money  is  rap- 
idly advancing  in  purchasing  power.  It  is  the  one  thing 
which  everybody  wants  and  must  have.  The  very  planet, 
when  compared  with  it,  sinks  into  insignificance.  Buyers 
are  few  and  nobody  wants  the  land.  The  market  is  glutted 
and  mother  earth  goes  begging  for  purchasers.  Land  val- 
ues decline  and  the  money  baron  has  conquered.  This 
explains  for  the  most  part,  where  the  large  amount  of  sur- 
plus money  came  from  which  has  in  recent  years  been 
loaned  upon  farm  mortgages.  It  was  first  transferred  from 
industry  to  capital  by  contraction,  reduction  in  prices  and 
accumulations  of  interest,  and  then  loaned  back  to  the  very 
people  from  whom  it  had  been  filched.  By  this  process  the 
land  of  the  whole  country  has  been  practically  reopened  to 
private  entry  with  speculators  as  preferred  applicants  and 
actual  tillers  of  the  soil  in  the  role  of  trespassers. 

The  release  of  money  through  contraction  and  consequent 
reduction  of  prices  accounts  for  that  financial  mirage  which 
has  perplexed  and  deluded  the  people  of  this  country  ever 
since  the  inauguration  of  the  McCulloch  policy  in  1866.  As 
often  as  the  people  complained  that  prices  were  ruinously 
low  and  money  painfully  scarce,  the  apologists  of  the  bale- 
ful order  of  things  would  point  to  the  banks  and  loan 
brokers  and  cry  out:  "There  is  an  abundance  of  money — 
more  than  can  be  profitably  employed."  Great  metropoli- 
tan newspapers  took  up  the  refrain  and  have  ever  since 
been  singing  it  in  full  chorus,  basso,  tenor,  soprano  and 


348  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

alto.  They  foro;et  that  most  prudent  men  decline  to  invest 
money  when  prices  are  rapidly  falling.  Those  who  have 
money  understand  that  their  idle  cash,  though  locked  up  in 
the  vault,  is  all  the  while  increasing  in  purchasing  power, 
which  is  equivalent  to  a  high  rate  of  interest  without  risk. 
This  makes  money  appear  to  be  plentiful  when  in  fact  it  is 
an  additional  process  of  making  it  scarce.  Contraction 
destroyed  one  moiety  of  the  money  and  falling  prices 
drove  the  other  into  the  vaults.  The  presence  of  large 
quantities  in  the  hands  of  the  loan  brokers  is  conclusive 
evidence  that  it  is  not  performing  its  legitimate  function 
in  the  channels  of  trade,  and  that  industry  is  seriously  suf- 
fering at  its  extremities.  And  yet  this  condition  of  things 
is  generally  accepted  as  conclusive  evidence  that  no  more 
monej'"  is  needed.  Such  financial  wiseacres  could  prove 
that  there  had  never  been  a  drought  in  the  Northwest  by 
showing  that  Lake  Michigan  had  always  been  navigable. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  that  this  condition  of  things 
necessarily  forces  vast  quantities  of  land  upon  the  market. 
It  offers  a  premium  to  land  speculators  and  enables  the  few 
who  control  the  money  to  buy  up  at  a  low  figure  great  areas 
of  the  soil.  It  empowers  those  who  are  financially  strong 
in  every  neighborhood  to  crowd  out  their  weaker  neighbors 
and  secure  titles  to  their  lands.  It  is  a  common  thing  now 
to  find  large  landed  proprietors  in  every  county  throughout 
all  the  states  and  territories.  Small  estates  are  being  rapidly 
absorbed  and  the  once  contented  tillers  of  small  farms  are 
being  rooted  out  and  driven  to  the  cities,  or  they  are  taking 
their  places  in  the  rapidly  increasing  army  of  tenants.  In 
a  healthy  economic  condition  the  tendency,  as  population 
increases,  would  be  to  smaller  farms  and  higher  cultivation. 
But  at  present,  we  are  making  rapid  strides  in  exactly  the 
opposite  direction. 


FINANCE   AND    OWNEESHIP    OF   LAND.  349 

All  shrewd  investors  understand  that  the  best  security- 
known  to  the  business  world  is  land.  It  is  not  only  non- 
perishable,  but  the  number  of  acres  are  forever  fixed.  It 
can  neither  be  more  nor  less  through  all  the  centuries.  Not 
so  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth.  They  multiply  rap- 
idly. The  yearly  increase  can  be  calculated  with  accuracy, 
and  as  they  multiply  [the  demand  for  homes  and  arable  land 
must  of  necessity  increase  in  like  ratio.  When  we  remem- 
ber that  the  area  of  the  earth  is  limited  and  its  inhabitants 
constantly  increasing  in  numbers,  the  rapid  tendency  to- 
ward large  holdings  constitutes  a  most  solemn  and  startling 
impeachment  of  our  whole  system  of  land  tenures.  It  is  a 
plea  for  reform  more  eloquent  and  persuasive  than  any- 
thing which  can  be  evolved  from  the  finite  mind. 

THE  DEATH  PLEDGE. 

The  man  who  originated  the  word  mortgage  and  applied 
it  to  real  estate  which  is  pledged  for  the  payment  of  debt, 
was  a  philologist  and  a  philosopher.  The  first  part  ©f  the 
word — mort — was  originally  derived  from  a  latin  word 
which  signifies  death.  The  word  murder  is  from  the  same 
ultimate  root.  The  last  half  of  the  word — gage — is  from  the 
Old  French,  and  signifies  to  pledge,  pawn  or  stake.  We  get 
the  whole  word  from  the  Old  English,  where  it  was  used  to 
mean  a  dead  pledge.  It  was  probably  employed  to  dis- 
tinguish the  pledge  of  lands  from  the  pawn  of  chattels — 
the  latter  being  movable;  but  this  would  not  sufficiently 
account  for  the  selection  of  the  word  mort^  which  is  sugges- 
tive of  death  and  the  departure  of  the  mortgager  from  the 
earth,  Having  'pledged  his  source  of  subsistence,  when 
that  is  gone  he  is  liable  to  perish.  Hence  in  its  last  anal- 
ysis, the  mortgage  rests  upon  the  life  of  him  who  gives 
the  pledge  and  upon  those  who  are  dependent  upon  him 
for  support.  It  is  creditable  to  the  savage  tribes  that 
they  have  never  committed  this  abominable  crime. 


350  A    CALL   TO   ACTION. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  effects  of  an  insufficient  volume  of 
money,  are,  to  depress  the  price  of  real  estate  in  the  mar- 
ket, drive  it  into  pledge,  force  it  to  sale  and  to  greatly  re- 
duce the  number  and  increase  the  extent  of  individual  hold- 
ings. By  such  means  the  land  passes  rapidly  into  the 
hands  of  a  small  class  of  persons  whose  means  enable 
them  to  retain  the  title.  These  influences  have  been  at 
high  tide  in  this  country  for  more  than  twenty  years.  The 
effects  are  seen  in  the  rapid  increase  of  urban  and  corres- 
ponding decrease  of  rural  population  as  shown  by  our  late 
census. 

But  the  most  disastrous  and  appalling  manifestation  of 
this  deplorable  policy  has  yet  to  be  mentioned.  The  decline 
in  the  price  of  lands,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  can  be 
but  temporary.  Two  influences  unite  to  make  this  certain: 
First,  the  increase  of  population,  and  second,  that  as  titles 
pass  into  the  hands  of  capitalists  the  land  is  withdrawn  from 
sale  except  to  persons  of  like  means.  Such  landholders 
can  wait  for  still  further  advance  in  prices. 

It  may  be  suggested  that  this  increase  in  value  will  result 
in  relief  to  those  who  are  mortgaged  and  cultivating  the 
soil.  A  moment's  reflection  will  show  this  to  be  an  error. 
No  one  but  a  land  speculator  or  some  one  wishing  to  escape 
from  the  curse  of  debt  can  be  interested  in  having  real 
estate  advance  in  price,  for  the  reason  that  an  increase  in 
price  means  heavier  taxes.  What  the  farmer  most  wants 
is  a  good  price  for  the  products  of  his  farm  rather  than  an 
advance  in  the  value  of  the  farm  itself.  This  can  only  be 
brought  about  by  increasing  consumption,  and  this,  in 
turn,  by  enabling  the  consumer  to  supply  his  wants.  It  is 
plain  that  an  advance  in  the  price  of  real  estate  which  is 
not  caused  by  an  increase  in  the  value  of  its  products,  while 
it  may  enable  a  few  debt-ridden  citizens  to  escape  from 
their  burdens,  is  nevertheless,  upon  the  whole,  a  serious 


FINANCE    AND    OWNERSHIP    OF   LAND.  351 

evil  to  the  community  at  large.  It  shuts  the  door  of  oppor- 
tunity against  the  people  and  deprives  them  of  the  hope  of 
securing  homes.  It  is  not  high  priced  lands  that  we  want, 
but  high  priced  products;  and  this  can  never  be  realized 
until  those  who  are  engaged  in  other  pursuits  are  furnished 
with  employment  at  wages  which  will  enable  them  to  fully 
supply  their  wants. 

We  have  now  reached  the  period  in  the  history  of  this 
country  when  the  secondary  effects  of  our  financial  system 
are  beginning  to  be  seriously  felt.  Land  values  are  rising, 
but  the  prices  of  farm  products,  taking  the  years  together 
are  seriously  declining.  The  great  body  of  mortgaged 
farmers  will  make  heroic  struggles  to  save  their  homes  but 
they  will,  unless  relief  be '  extended,  in  most  instances  be 
forced  at  last  to  yield  to  the  inevitable  and  part  with  their 
lands.  The  increased  price  of  land  is  only  an  additional 
inducement  for  them  to  relax  their  eft'orts.  This  is  exactly 
the  effect  which  has  been  realized  in  Great  Britain  where 
the  ante-type  of  our  financial  system  has  been  in  undirturbed 
operation  for  nearly  three  quarters  of  a  centurj'.  In  Eng- 
land the  result  has  been  large  holdings  wholly  dispropor- 
tionate to  the  wants  of  the  proprietors,  while  the  great 
body  of  the  people  are  left  homeless  and  hopeless  in  a 
country  which  they  are  expected  to  love  and  defend. 

The  reader  has  doubtless  learned  from  his  own  observa- 
tion that  the  same  deplorable  state  of  affairs  is  rapidly  tak- 
ing place  in  our  own  country.  It  seems  incredible  that  a 
people  possessing  the  boon  of  free  Government  and  an 
unobstructed  ballot  could  be  thus  despoiled  and  subjugated 
by  a  few  selfish  speculators  and  monopolists  in  a  single 
Century.  And  more  lamentable  still  the  fact  that  up  to  a 
very  recent  period  the  majority  of  the  people  seem  to  have 
been  unmindful  of  the  fact  that  these  evil  influences  and 


352  A    CALL   TO    ACTION.  | 

laws,  fashioned  to  bego;ar  themselves  and  their  posterity, 
have  been  in  full  operation  before  their  eyes. 

The  Rt.  Hon.  William  E.  Gladstone,  that  marvelous 
statesman  and  leader  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  a  man- 
ifesto issued  to  the  people  of  Great  Britain  in  the  month 
of  February,  1892,  declares  that  the  present  land  laws  of 
England  and  the  large  holdings  made  possible  by  them, 
are  the  cause  of  much  of  the  pauperism  in  that  country. 
That  the  people  are  made  paupers  by  law.  He  declares 
that  laws  for  the  relief  of  the  agricultural  classes  and 
which  will  enable  the  people  to  acquire  lands  are  needed, 
and  he  calls  for  their  enactment.  Lord  Shaftesbury,  when 
he  had  concluded  his  first  speech  in  Parliament,  made  in 
behalf  of  more  humane  treatment  of  the  insane,  went  to 
his  room  and  recorded  in  his  diary  the  following  note: 
"And  so  by  God's  blessing  my  first  effort  has  been  made 
for  the  advancement  of  human  happiness.  May  I  improve 
hourly."  It  is  glorious  to  know  that  Mr.  Gladstone  is 
filling  the  closing  years  of  the  present  Century  so  full  of 
human  thoughts  and  not)le  deeds  that  they  will  be  crowded 
over  into  the  next  where  they  will  forever  remain  as  the 
common  inheritance  of  our  race. 


CHAPTKR    XI. 


THE  GERRY-MAN  DER. 

Abuse  of  power  is  the  most  exasperating  crime  of  the 
world.  It  has  marred  the  biography  of  rulers,  stained  the 
history  of  dynasties,  polluted  the  administration  of  justice, 
corrupted  the  policies  of  parties,  destroyed  the  tranquility 
of  society  and  boldly  set  at  naught  the  beneficent  objects 
of  Government  from  the  dawn  of  history  until  the  present 
hour.  Indeed  it  would  seem  that  as  man  reluctantly 
emerged  from  barbarism  into  civilization  he  brought  along 
with  him  this  cherished  cruelty,  among  others,  and  has 
since  been  spending  much  of  his  time  in  the  vain  endeavor 
to  domesticate  his  untamable  vices — in  trying  to  improve 
the  milk  of  human  kindness  by  spicing  it  with  venom  and 
mixing  it  with  wormwood  and  gall.  Some  men  who  are 
physically  strong  delight  in  using  their  strength  to  inflict 
injury  upon  weaker  persons;  others  who  are  wealthy,  in 
levying  tribute  upon  the  destitute;  powerful  corporations 
take  advantage  of  the  weak,  practically  confiscate  their 
property,  decree  beggary  to  large  numbers  of  persons  and 
frequently  ordain  bankruptcy  to  whole  communities.  Such 
operations  strongly  resemble  the  deadly  feuds  and  tribal 
•wars  which  mark  the  history  of  savage  races.  But  bad  as 
these  things  are,  we  are  not  to  look  to  such  manifestations 
for  the  most  malignant  type  of  modern  tyranny.  It  is 
when  wrong-doers  get  possession  of  the  State  and  perpe- 
trate their  crimes  under  color  of  law  that  we  catch  a  real 
23 


354  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

glimpse  of  the  diabolism  of  oppression.  It  is  in  such 
•chapters  that  we  find  recorded  the  most  heartrendinsj  and 
melancholy  recitals  known  to  the  annals  of  our  race.  The 
criminal  entrenches  himself  behind  statutes,  prates  about 
patriotism  and  places  those  who  plead  for  redress,  or  com- 
plain of  tyranny  in  the  attitude  of  seditious  and  disobedi- 
ent subjects.  Oflicial  brutalities  in  modern  Hussia  and 
English  tyranny  in  Ireland,  India  and  Egypt  will  be  read- 
ily recalled  by  the  reader  as  marked  instances  of  this  class 
of  State  ordained  crimes.  But  we  need  not  go  beyond  the 
United  States  in  search  for  manifestations  of  this  crjrins: 
evil. 

In  our  own  country,  as  we  have  abundantly  proven  in 
our  chapter  concerning  the  Public  Lands,  we  have  thou- 
sands of  instances  where  meritorious  and  law-abiding  citi- 
zens have  been  despoiled  of  their  homes  and  turned  adrift 
as  beggars  by  the  lawless  decrees  of  mere  deparmental 
officials.  In  their  haste  to  serve  their  corporate  masters  it 
is  manifest  that  they  wantonly  over- rode  the  plain  letter  of 
the  statute.  Indeed,  in  numerous  instances  it  was  so  held 
by  the  highest  Court  after  it  was  too  late  to  restore  the 
wronged  parties  to  their  rights.  In  many  cases  the  plain 
wording  of  the  statute  and  the  interpretation  of  the  Court 
had  united  to  assure  the  citizen  that  he  might  enter  upon 
the  land  with  perfect  safety.  To  complete  the  assurance, 
the  Government  solemnly  executed  and  delivered  to  mul- 
tiplied hundreds  of  these  enterprising  home-seekers  its 
patents,  bearing  the  Great  Seal  of  the  Nation  conveying  to 
the  grantees  named  and  to  their  heirs  and  assigns  forever, 
complete  title  to  the  lands  described.  And  yet  subordinate 
bureau  officials  and  heads  of  departments  have  afterwards 
ordered  the  cancellation  of  such  patents  and  evicted  the 
settlers.  Upon  rehearing  before  the  courts,  the  former 
rulines  upon   which    the  settlers   acted    have  often   been 


THE   GEERY-MANDER.  355 

reversed  and  the  last  hope  taken  away  from  the  home- 
seekers  and  their  families.  These  are  marked  instances  of 
the  perversion  and  wrongful  use  of  the  powers  of  Govern- 
ment. The  entire  enginer}''  of  State  wasnmade  to  evolve 
tyranny  instead  of  liberty,  destruction  instead  of  security, 
and  the  will  of  the  people  and  the  laws  which  they  had 
ordained  were  alike  set  at  naught. 

But  the  abuse  of  power  referred  to  in  the  Title  of  this 
Chapter  differs  in  type,  though  not  in  character  or  essence, 
from  the  crimes  just  named.  The  kinship  of  motive  in  the 
two  cases  is  readily  discernable  and  the  difference  lies 
chiefly  in  the  method  of  procedure.  In  the  above  instances 
the  law  is  openly  violated  and  redress  is  denied  by  minis- 
terial and  sometimes  even  by  judicial  oflBcers.  The  polit- 
ical bushranger  matures  his  plans,  captures  the  State,  gives 
his  schemes  of  pillage  the  sanction  of  law  and  appro- 
priates the  spoil.  If  you  refuse  to  submit  you  are  not 
law  abiding. 

The  Gerry-mander  belongs  in  the  latter  category.  This 
vice  assails  representative  and  popular  features  of  Govern- 
ment, general  and  local,  and  seeks  to  thwart  an  untram- 
meled  expression  of  public  opinion.  Those  who  profit  bj' 
the  abuses  of  society  deplore  agitation,  stand  in  mortal 
dread  of  the  ballot-box  and  delight  in  special  statutory 
favors.  They  know  that  many  existing  institution  will  not 
bear  investigation  and  they  tremble  whenever  new  currents 
of  thought  are  set  in  motion.  They  are  liable  to  sweep 
existing  wrongs  and  fallacies  into  oblivion  and  to  replace 
them  with  institutions  and  theories  more  equitable  and 
humane.  Hence  they  seek  to  head  off  popular  clamor, 
crush  out  political  rivals  and  even  to  drive  back  the  rising 
tide  of  reform  by  special  enactments. 

The  first  marked  attempt  in  this  country  to  legislate  in 
restraint  of  political   opinion   occurred   in   Massachusetts 


356  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

during  the  administration  of  Governor  Elbridge   Gerry, 
1812. 

The  caricature  found  at  the  ch)8e  of  this  chapter  is  from 
an  original  illustration  which  appeared  in  the  Boston  Reg- 
ister of  January,  1813.  The  following  historic  statement 
taken  from  the  Memorial  History  of  Boston  will  fully  ex- 
plain the  uncomely  figure: 

"When  Elbridge  Gerry  was  Governor  in  1812,  the  Dem- 
ocratic Legislature,  in  order  to  secure  increased  representa- 
tion of  their  party  in  the  State  Senate,  districted  the  State 
in  such  a  way  that  the  geographical  outline  of  the  towns 
forming  the  Essex  District  brought  out  a  territory  of  sing- 
ular outline.  Major  Ben  Russell  of  the  Centinel  caused  a 
map  of  the  district  to  be  made.  Gilbert  Stuart,  the  artist, 
added  a  head,  wings  and  claws,  and  exclaimed,  'That  will 
do  for  a  salamander!'  'Gerry -mander,'  said  Major  Russell, 
and  the  title  has  applied  ever  since  to  political  districts 
which  have  been  tinkered." 

After  this  travesty  had  slumbered  for  nearly  three 
quarters  of  a  century  it  was,  eight  or  ten  years  ago,  brought 
to  light  by  Mr.  Charles  H.  Litchman,  of  Marblehead, 
Massachusetts,  and  republished  in  his  paper,  the  Statesman. 
We  are  indebted  to  Mr.  Litchman  for  the  copy  from  which 
our  illustration  is  taken.  Since  the  planting  of  this  bad 
example  in  the  Old  Bay  State  in  the  early  years  of  the 
Century,  its  noxious  growth  has  extended  into  all  the  States, 
It  has  been  inveighed  against  by  all  classes,  condemned 
by  all  parties  and  anon  encouraged  whenever  the  ambi. 
tion  of  place  hunters  or  the  interest  of  political  organi- 
zations could  be  advanced  by  the  usurpation.  It  flourishes 
best  when  the  contest  between  parties  is  waged  simply  for 
office.  It  delights  in  barren  and  abandoned  fields  where 
no  attempt  is  made  to  cultivate  the  soil  and  where  the  pro- 
prietor gathers  a  precarious  subsistence  by  trapping  and 


THE   GEERY-MANDEK.  357 

hunting  for  ^ame.  It  is  just  now  flourishing  exuberantly 
in  most  of  the  States  of  the  Union. 

It  should  not  excite  surprise  to  see  this  weapon  of  war- 
fare used  by  parties  which  exist  merely  for  spoil.  The 
wonder  is  that  the  people,  who  never  share  in  the  booty 
and  who  are  only  interested  in  the  general  good,  will  from 
year  to  year,  join  these  political  adventurers,  sustain  them 
in  their  depredations  and  then  foot  their  bills.  Let  us  ex- 
amine a  few  of  the  recent  manifestations  of  this  evil. 

In  1888  the  Republicans  of  Indiana  cast  265,365  votes 
for  Representatives  in  Congress.  The  Democrats  cast 
259,987  votes — a  difference  of  5,378  in  favor  of  the  Repub- 
licans, and  yet  the  Democrats  elected  ten  members  and  the 
Republicans  three.  The  Democrats  had  one  Representa 
live  in  Congress  for  every  25,998  votes  and  the  Republicans 
one  for  every  88,445.  In  1890  in  the  same  State  the 
Democrats  elected  one  Representative  in  Congress  for 
every  21,750  votes  cast  by  them  and  the  Republicans  one 
for  every  108,282  votes. 

In  the  same  years  the  Republicans  of  Ohio,  under  a 
Republican  Gerry-mander,  elected  Representatives  in  Con- 
gress as  follows:  1888,  sixteen  Representatives,  or  one 
for  every  26,032  votes.  The  Democrats  elected  but  five, 
or  one  for  every  79,125  votes.  The  election  in  that  State 
for  1890  occurred  under  a  Democratic  Gerrj^-mander  and 
the  tables  were  completely  reversed — the  Democrats  elect- 
ing fourteen  members,  or  one  Representative  for  every 
25,824  votes,  while  the  Republicans  elected  but  seven,  or 
one  for  every  51,803  votes.  Our  figures  are  taken  from 
an  able  article  written  by  Mr.  Robert  S.  Taylor  and  pub- 
lished in  the  Arena  magazine,  February,  1892.  These  are 
examples  of  this  abuse  as  applied  to  the  election  of  Repre- 
sentatives in  Congress.  Scores  of  others  could  be  men- 
tioned if  space  did  not  forbid.     If  we  could  illustrate  this 


358  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

chapter  with  diagrams  showing  the  grotesque  shapes  ol 
the  districts  the  abuse  would  appear  still  more  glaring. 
The  law  of  Congress  which  requires  members  to  be  chosen 
in  districts  composed  of  contiguous  territory  is  practically 
made  a  dead  letter.  It  evidently  means  fairly  contiguous 
territory.  But  when  a  Congress  assembles  elected  by  such 
method  the  members  are  not  likely  to  interpret  the  law  so 
as  to  unseat  themselves.     Stolen  waters  are  sweet. 

The  same  methods  are  employed  by  the  so-called  great 
parties  of  the  day  to  retain  political  control  in  the  States 
and  to  elect  United  States  Senators.  The  following  is  a 
lawless  and  revolutionary  example  of  this  inveterate  plague. 

Section  35,  Article  3,  of  the  Constitution  of  the  State 
of  Iowa,  provides  as  follows: 

"The  number  of  representatives  shall  not  exceed  one 
hundred,  and  they  shall  be  apportioned  among  the  counties 
and  representative  districts  according  to  the  number  of 
inhabitants  therein.  Every  county  and  district  which  shall 
have  a  number  of  inhabitants  equal  to  one-half  of  the  ratio 
fixed  by  law  shall  be  entitled  to  one  representative,  and 
any  county  containing  in  addition  to  the  ratio  fixed  by  law, 
one-half  of  that  number  or  more  shall  be  entitled  to  one 
additional  representative." 

The  Twenty-second  General  Assembly  fixed  the  ratio  at 
24,000.  Under  the  Constitutional  provision  above  given 
no  county  having  less  than  12,000  would  by  itself  be  enti- 
tled to  a  representative,  and  yet  the  same  Legislature  which 
fixed  the  ratio  Gerry-mandered  the  State  so  as  to  put  seven- 
teen Kepublican  counties  into  fifteen  Representative  dis- 
tricts, every  one  of  which  was  clearly  unconstitional.  The 
following  are  the  Republican  districts  created  by  this 
shameful  act,  with  the  population  of  each  at  that  time: 

Clark,  11,369;  Louisa,  11,926;  Audubon,  10,825;  Ida, 
9,012;  Calhoun,  9,836;  Franklin,  11,324;  Wright,  6,380; 
Humboldt,  8,065;  Buena  Vista,  11,530;  Sioux,  8,389;  Kos- 


THE   GEKRY-MANDEK.  359 

suth,  9,337;  Hancock  and  Winnebago,  10,6^;  Howard, 
9,305;  Worth,  8,257;  Osceola  and  Lyon,  8,002;  Total, 
147,225. 

These  fifteen  districts  were  allowed  to  elect  fifteen  mem- 
bers to  the  Iowa  House. 

At  the  same  time  they  created  five  Democratic  districts, 
out  of  five  counties  containing  the  following  population, 
and  allowed  them  only  one  Eepresentative  each,  to- wit: 

Lee,  34,024;  Des  Moines,  35,733;  Woodbury,  32,289; 
Marshall,  25,036;  Wapello,  25,080;  Total,  152,161. 

This  apportionment  gave  one  Kepublican  residing  in  the 
fifteen  districts  as  much  power  in  making  the  laws  of  Iowa 
as  three  Democrats  who  happened  to  reside  in  the  five 
Democratic  districts.  But  the  main  object  had  in  view  was 
the  election  of  a  United  States  Senator,  and  that  end  was 
accomplished  in  this  shameful  and  revolutionary  manner. 

It  is  now  proposed  to  apply  the  Gerry-mander  to  the 
appointment  of  electors  of  President  and  Yice-President. 
Tlie  Constitution  provides  that  each  state  shall  appoint 
electors  in  such  manner  as  the  legislature  may  direct.  They 
may  then  decide  to  elect  by  districts,  and  tlie  districts  may 
be  changed,  from  time  to  time,  to  suit  the  party  in  power 
in  the  state.  Michigan  has  already  adopted  the  district 
method.  It  was  enacted  by  a  Democratic  legislature  and 
the  present  Executive  of  the  United  States  called  attention 
to  the  matter  in  his  annual  message  on  the  assembling  of 
of  the  Fifty-second  Congress.  He  suggests  a  Constitutional 
amendment  which  shall  prescribe  a  fixed  method  for  all  the 
States.  But  it  is  almost  as  difficult  to  amend  the  Constitu- 
tion as  it  would  be  to  frame  a  new  Government.  We  are 
beginning  to  find  out  that  a  Constitution  made  to  meet  the 
wants  of  three  million  people  in  a  patriotic  age  which  could 
give  to  the  world  a  Declaration  of  Independence,  is  not 


360  A    CALL   TO   ACTION. 

necessarily  adequate  to  the  necessities  of  sixty-four  mil- 
lions warped  and  influenced  by  party  prejudices  and  divided 
into  hostile  camps.  We  are  beginning  to  find  out  that  our 
bed  is  too  short  to  stretch  ourselves  on  it,  and  the  covering 
too  narrow  to  wrap  ourselves  in  it,  and  that  new  safeguards 
are  sorely  needed. 

It  is  not  strange  that  the  state  of  Michigan  should  feel 
that  something  should  be  done  to  avoid  the  evils  of  the 
present  methods  of  selecting  electors;  but  they  will  find 
that  the  Gerry-mander  will  not  furnish  them  a  safe  or  desir- 
able remedy. 

When  a  party  entrusted  with  the  control  of  Government 
becomes  intoxicated  with  power  and,  fearing  the  displeas- 
ure of  the  people,  uses  the  State  to  fortify  itself  against  the 
rightful  exercise  of  public  opinion,  there  is  nothing  to  dis- 
tinguish such  an  act  from  open  insurrection  except  the 
cowardice  of  the  perpetrators  who  commit  their  crimes 
behind  the  forms  of  law.  By  one  false  pretense  and 
another  they  cajole  the  people  and  secure  their  confidence 
and  then  turn  their  guns  upon  the  deluded  constituency, 
bring  them  to  bay  and  compel  submission  to  outrage  and 
humiliation. 

The  only  safe  and  fair  method  of  selection  is  by  the 
people  of  the  whole  State.  If  all  the  States  should  adopt 
the  district  method  it  would  answer  if  the  Gerry-mander 
could  be  avoided.  But  we  cannot  hope  to  secure  the  one 
or  to  avoid  the  other.  There  is,  however,  a  plain  practical 
remedy  at  hand  which  the  States  can  adopt  for  themselves. 
Appoint  the  Electors  for  President  and  Yice-President  by 
the  vote  of  all  the  qualified  electors  in  the  State,  but  allow 
the  voter  to  cast  one  vote  for  each  Elector  as  he  does  now, 
or  allow  him  to  cast  them  all  for  any  number  less  than  the 
whole  number  to  be  selected  from  the  State,  just  as  he 
pleases.     To  illustrate:     The   State  of  Iowa  appoints   at 


THE  GERRYMANDER. 

I'ltOM   TTIK  ORIOINAIj   IlI.I'STIJATION  OF  THE   ESSEX,  MASSACHUSETTS  DiSTlilCT 
AS   IT   APPEAHED   IN   THE   BOSTON    liEOISTEH,   .lANTAItV.    lSi:i. 


THE   GEKRY-MANDER. 


361 


present  eleven.  The  four  parties  in  the  State  would  then 
nominate  the  number  which  they  could  certainly  elect  and 
no  more,  and  cast  their  whole  vote  for  them.  If  they 
should  nominate  more  they  would  be  in  danger  of  losing 
all.  If  but  one  is  nominated  each  person  supporting  the 
nominee  would  cast  eleven  votes  for  one  candidate  instead 
of  one  vote  each  for  eleven  candidates  as  at  present.  If 
he  desired  to  vote  for  two  or  more  he  could  divide  his 
eleven  votes  between  them  just  as  he  pleased.  This  is 
what  is  called  cumulative  voting,  or  minority  or  propor- 
tional representation.  Senator  Buckalew,  of  Pennsylvania, 
several  years  ago,  introduced  a  bill  to  provide  for  the 
election  of  Representatives  in  Congress  by  this  method. 
It  was  referred  to  the  Judiciary  Committee  of  which  he 
was  a  member.  He  made  a  very  able  and  exhaustive 
report  in  favor  of  the  measure  which  he  afterwards  em- 
bodied in  a  book  entitled  Proportional  Representation. 
If  this  method  were  adopted  it  would  restore  the  Govern- 
ment to  the  people  and  sound  the  death  knell  to  the  corrupt 
use  of  money  in  politics.  We  predict  that  Mr.  Buckalew's 
book  will  yet  attract  very  wide  attention.  The  method 
suggested  is  Democratic  in  the  highest  sense  and  its  oper- 
ation would  make  the  House  of  Representatives  and  the 
Electoral  College  representative  bodies  in  fact  as  well  ir 
theory. 


CHAPTBR    XII. 


DIVES  AND  LAZARUS. 


CONTRASTS. 

If  the  master  builders  of  our  civilization  one  hundred 
years  ago  had  been  told  that  at  the  end  of  a  single  cen- 
tury, American  society  would  present  such  melancholy 
contrasts  of  wealth  and  povert}%  of  individual  happiness 
and  widespread  infelicity  as  are  to  be  found  to-day  through- 
out the  Republic,  the  person  making  the  unwelcome 
prediction  whould  have  been  looked  upon  as  a  misanthro- 
pist, and  his  loyalty  to  Democratic  institutions  would  have 
been  seriously  called  in  question.  Our  federal  machine, 
with  its  delicate  inter-lace  work  of  National,  State  and  mu- 
nicipal supervision,  each  intended  to  secure  perfect  indi- 
vidual equality,  was  expected  to  captivate  the  world  by  its 
operation  and  insure  domestic  contentment  and  personal 
security  to  a  degree  never  before  realized  by  mankind. 

But  there  is  a  vast  difference  between  the  generation 
which  made  the  heroic  struggle  for  Self-government  in 
colonial  days,  and  the  third  generation  which  is  now  en- 
gaged in  a  mad  rush  for  wealth.  The  first  took  its  stand 
upon  the  inalienable  rights  of  man  and  made  a  fight  which 
shook  the  world.  But  the  leading  spirits  of  the  latter  are 
entrenched  behind  class  laws  and  revel  in  special  privileges. 
It  will  require  another  revolution  to  overthrow  them.  That 
revolution  is  upon  us  even  now. 


DIVES   AND    LAZARUS.  363 

Two  representative  characters — Dives  and  Lazarus — al- 
ways make  their  appearance  side  by  side  in  disturbing  con- 
trast just  before  the  tragic  stage  of  revolution  is  reached. 
They  were  present  at  the  overthrow  of  ancient  civilizations; 
the  hungry  multitude  stood  outside  the  gates  when  Belshaz- 
zar's  impious  feast  was  spread;  they  were  both  at  the  cave 
Oj!  Adullam  when  the  scepter  was  about  to  depart  from  the 
tyrant  Saul  to  the  hands  of  the  youthful  David ;  they  stood 
side  by  side  when  Alaric  thundered  at  the  gates  of  Rome; 
they  confronted  one  another  in  the  fiery  tempest  of  the 
French  revolution  and  they  are  sullenly  face  to  face  in  our 
own  country  to-day.  We  will  devote  a  few  pages  to  the 
delineation  of  these  forces  as  they  appear  in  our  civilization 
at  the  present  period. 

SOCIAL   EXTRA VAGANOE. 

In  the  year  1884,  as  we  are  told  by  Ward  McAllister, 
in  his  book  entitled  ''Society  as  I  Found  It,"  a  wealthy 
gentleman  gave  a  banquet  at  Delmonico's  at  which  the 
moderate  number  of  seventy-two  guests,  ladies  and  gentle- 
men, were  entertained.  The  gentleman  giving  the  banquet 
had  unxepectedly  received  from  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States  a  rebate  of  $10,000  for  duties  which  had  been  exacted 
from  him  through  some  alleged  misconception  of  the  law. 
He  resolved  to  spend  the  entire  sum  in  giving  a  single  din- 
ner which  should  excel  any  private  entertainment  ever 
given  in  New  York.  He  consulted  Charles  Delmonico, 
who  engaged  to  carry  out  his  wishes.  The  table  was  con- 
structed with  a  miniature  lake  in  the  center  thirty  feet  in 
length,  enclosed  by  a  network  of  golden  wire  which  reached 
to  the  ceiling,  forming  a  great  cage.  Four  immense  swans 
were  secured  from  one  of  the  parks  and  placed  in  this  lake. 
High  banks  of  flowers  of  every  hue  surrounded  the  lake 
and  covered  the  entire  table,  leaving  barely  enough  room 


364  A   CALL    TO    ACTION. 

for  the  plates  and  wine  glasses.  The  room  was  festooned 
with  flowers  in  every  direction.  Miniature  mountains  and 
valleys  with  carpets  of  flowers  made  vocal  with  sparkling 
rivulets,  met  the  eye  on  every  hand.  Golden  cages  filled 
with  sweet  singing  birds  hung  from  the  ceiling  and  added 
their  enchantment  to  the  gorgeous  spectacle.  Soft,  sweet 
music  swept  in  from  adjoining  rooms,  and  all  that  art, 
wealth  and  imagination  could  do  was  done  to  make  the 
scene  one  of  unexampled  beauty.  And  then  the  feast ! 
All  the  dishes  which  ingenuity  could  invent  or  the  his- 
tory of  past  extravagance  suggest,  were  spread  before  the 
guests.  The  oldest  and  costliest  wines  known  to  the  trade 
flowed  like  the  water  that  leaped  down  the  cascades  in  the 
banqueting  hall.  The  guests  were  wild  with  exultation 
and  delight  and  tarried  far  into  the  night.  But  in  a  few 
brief  hours  the  romanticism  had  passed,  the  carousal  was 
broken,  and  the  revelers  were  face  to  face  with  the  respon- 
sibilities which  none  of  us  can  evade.  The  fool  and  his 
money  had  parted. 

SILVER,  GOLD  AND  DIAMOND  DINNEES. 

Some  time  after  the  ''swan  dinner"  was  given,  three  of 
the  swell  leaders  of  New  York  society  planned  to  give  each 
a  handsome  entertainment  which  should  set  all  New  York 
talking.  Each  instructed  the  head  of  the  celebrated  cafe 
to  spare  no  expense  and  to  make  his  dinner  the  best  of  the 
three.  So  magnificent  were  these  entertainments  that 
Lorenzo  Delmonico  designated  them  as  the  silver,  gold  and 
diamond  dinners.  Each  had  peculiarities  which  distin- 
guished it  from  the  others.  At  one  of  them  each  lady 
found  snugly  concealed  in  her  napkin  a  gold  bracelet  with 
the  monogram  of  Jerome  Park  in  the  center  in  chased  gold. 


DIVES    AND   LAZARUS.  365 

DIAMOND  VESTURE. 

At  one  of  the  stated  receptions  given  at  the  Executive 
Mansion  during  the  first  session  of  the  Forty-ninth  Con- 
gress, there  appeared  among  the  throng  of  exquisitely 
attired  guests,  the  wife  of  a  noted  New  York  millionaire. 
She  was  accompanied  by  two  trusted  attendants,  hand- 
somely dressed  in  citizens'  garb,  who  remained  constantly 
with  her,  but  slightly  to  the  rear  so  as  to  keep  perfect 
watch  over  her  drapery.  As  she  swept  through  the  hall 
with  her  train  and  into  the  great  east  room,  her  raiment 
glistened  until  it  almost  seemed  that  a  celestial  constella- 
tion had  descended  from  the  skies  to  attend  this  reception. 
Her  vesture  was  studded  with  a  vast  number  of  diamonds 
and  other  precious  stones,  valued  above  one  million  dollars! 
The  climax  of  absurdity  was  reached  and  the  utmost  height 
of  folly  scaled.  Does  the  reader  for  a  moment  think  that 
the  circle  of  wealthy  snobs  to  which  this  lady  belongs  has 
any  regard  to  republican  institutions?  On  the  contrary, 
every  sensible  person  knows  that  they  are  the  bitter  foes  to 
every  democratic  impulse,  and  their  extreme  wealth 
enables  them  to  make  their  hostility  aggressive  and  effec- 
tive. 

PRINCE   ASTOR's   WEDDING. 

In  the  year  1890,  young  Astor,  a  scion  of  the  celebrated 
family  which  has  so  long  been  prominent  in  5[ew  York 
financial  circles,  was  married.  Both  the  groom  and  the 
bride  represented  millions  of  wealth  and  the  wedding  was 
an  imposing  and  gorgeous  affair.  Twenty-five  thousand 
dollars  were  expended  on  the  day's  ceremony.  The  presents 
were  valued  at  $2,000,000,  and  the  couple  and  their  attend- 
ants and  a  number  of  friends,  immediately  departed  on  an 
expensive  yachting  cruise  which  was  to  cost  them  $10,000  a 
month  to   maintain.     In   speaking  of  these  nuptials  the 


366  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

Gliris&lan  Union  said:  "When  we  read  this  we  are  re- 
minded of  Thackeray's  description  of  the  extravagance  of 
the  Prince  Regent  during  the  Napoleonic  wars: 

"If  he  had  been  a  manufacturing  town,  or  a  populous 
rural  district,  or  an  army  of  5,000  men,  he  would  not  have 
cost  more.  The  nation  gave  him  more  money,  and  more 
and  more.     The  sum  is  past  counting. 

"Looked  at  soberly,  the  sums  lavished  upon  our  Ameri- 
can commoners  are  as  disgraceful  to  our  institutions  as 
were  the  squanderings  of  the  Prince  Regent  to  those  of 
England.  If  the  scandal  is  less  it  is  because  the  disastrous 
concentration  of  hereditary  wealth  has  as  yet  awakened  less 
serious  thought  among  us  than  the  disastrous  concentration 
of  hereditary  power  had  awakened  in  England.  In  the 
case  of  the  Astors,  quite  as  much  as  of  the  Prince  Regent, 
the  enormous  sums  expended  are  the  gift  of  the  Nation, 
obtained  without  compensating  service  on  the  part  of  the 
recipients.  The  burden  upon  the  labor  of  the  country  is 
as  great." 

A  sportsman's  dinner. 

Early  in  the  present  year,  1891,  a  well-knoy^^n  New  York 
State  Senator  gave  a  notable  banquet  in  honor  of  two  dis- 
tinguished citizens  of  that  State,  both  of  whom  are  prom- 
inently mentioned  in  connection  with  the  nomination  for 
the  Presidency  of  the  United  States.  The  following  de- 
scription of  the  table  and  decorations  appeared  in  the  daily 
press  at  the  time: 

"The  library  is  upon  the  second  floor  of  the  club  house, 
known  for  years  to  residents  of  this  city  as  the  Stewart 
Mansion.  It  is  a  large  room,  grandly  furnished,  and  just 
the  place  for  a  dinner  of  this  limited  proportion.  The  table 
has  been  especially  constructed  for  the  occasion,  and  it  is 
said  that  for  two  days  a  landscape  gardener  and  a  florist 
were  employed  in  decorating  it.  A  glance  at  it  made  this 
appreciable.  Most  of  those  present  were  ardent  sportsmen, 
and  to  this  instinct  the  table  appealed  in  tiie  strongest 
measure.     It  looked  like  an  immense  marsh,  just  the  place 


DIVES    AND   LAZARUS.  367 

for  fowl,  and  up  from  the  waters  of  the  small  lakes  which 
dotted  the  view,  four  live  diamond -backed  terrapins  shot 
up  their  heads  every  now  and  again  and  winked  slyly  at 
the  guests.  Cattail,  ferns,  grass  and  wild  flowers  hid  the 
banks  of  the  lakes,  and  amid  this  greenery  staffed  wild 
waterfowl  hidden,  as  if  in  the  attempt  to  escape  the 
guns  of  the  sportsman.  In  the  center  of  the  pool  lay  the 
gnarled  stump  of  an  immense  oak,  and  imbedded-  in  this 
was  a  nest  containing  an  egg  for  each  of  the  guests." 

THE  banker's   banquet. 

The  following  editorial  appeared  in  the  Kansas  City 
Times,  August  30,  1889  : 

"The  contract  for  serving  the  banquet  for  the  conven- 
tion of  the  American  Bankers'  Association  was  yesterday 
awarded  to  C.  M.  Hill,  of  the  Midland  Hotel.  There  were 
sixty  competitors.  The  price  is  such  as  to  insure  one  of 
the  finest  banquets  ever  served  in  this  country.  No  ex- 
pense will  be  spared  to  make  the  affair  a  grand  success, 
even  aside  from  the  menu.  The  banquet  will  be  given  in 
the  Priests  of  Pallas'  Temple,  at  Seventh  and  Lydia.  It 
will  be  necessary  to  build  and  furnish  an  annex,  where  the 
cooking  can  be  done  for  1,500  covers.  The  preparations 
seem  to  take  into  contemplation  a  great  flow  of  wine,  as 
there  will  be  six  thousand  wine  glasses  and  about  forty 
wine  servers.  There  will  be  in  all  nearly  three  hundred 
waiters.  It  is  es^mated  that  the  entire  cost  of  the  banquet 
will  be  from  $15,000  to  $20,000.  Mr.  Hill  anticipates  some 
difficulty  in  securing  efficient  waiters,  and  with  this  partic- 
ular object  in  view,  will  make  a  trip  to  New  York  and 
Chicago." 

This  impious  feast  which  took  place  in  the  very  heart  of 
the  mortgage-ridden  and  debt-cursed  West,  was  the  most 
shocking  and  brazen  exhibition  of  wanton  extravagance 
and  bad  morals  combined,  which  the  laboring  millions  of 
America  were  ever  called  upon  to  behold.  What  a  trav- 
esty upon  common  sense  and  the  ordinary  instinct  of  self- 


368  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

preservation  to  intrust  the  finances  of  a  ojreat  Nation  and 
the  welfare  of  labor  to  the  hands  of  such  men. 

This  carousal  was  but  history  repeating  itself.  It  is  not 
necessary  in  our  day  that  an  armless  hand  shall  come  out 
of  the  darkness  and  write  the  decree  of  Heaven  upon  the 
wall  of  the  palace  while  the  drunken  carousal  is  being 
held,  as  in  the  time  of  Belshazzar;  nor  does  it  now  require 
an  expert  Hebrew  prophet,  like  Daniel,  to  disclose  to  the 
King  that  the  sword  is  about  to  enter,  and  that  a  greater 
than  Darius  is  thundering  at  the  gates  of  Babylon,  com- 
missioned from  on  high  to  restore  the  stolen  treasures  of 
the  temple,  and  to  transfer  the  kingdom  to  another.  Bel- 
shazzar and  his  courtiers  were  not  first-class  scholars,  nor 
were  they  close  students  of  passing  events.  Tyrants,  and 
those  who  carouse  and  forget  the  poor  rarely  are.  They 
could  neither  read  the  writing  nor  tell  what  it  signified,  and 
so  they  called  in  an  expert — a  man  of  simple  habits — who 
preferred  to  mourn  in  captivity  rather  than  to  share  in  the 
robbery  of  his  race  or  to  enjoy  the  favor  of  the  King.  The 
writing  in  our  day  is  in  plain  English,  and  the  children  of 
the  captivity  and  all,  except  the  drunken  worshippers  of 
mammon,  can  interpret  its  meaning  without  difficulty. 

AT  THE  RICH  MAN's  GATE. 

About  the  time  these  princely  entertainments  were  given, 
and  in  the  same  year  with  some  of  them,  one  of  the  metro- 
politan journals  caused  a  careful  canvass  to  be  made  of  the 
unemployed  of  that  city.  The  number  was  found  to  be 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  persons  who  were  daily 
unsiiccessfully  seehing  worh  within  the  city  limits  of  New 
York.  Another  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  earn  less 
than  sixty  cents  per  day.  Thousands  of  these  are  poor 
girls  who  work  from  eleven  to  sixteen  hours  per  day. 


DIVES   AND   LAZAKUS.  369 

In  the  year  1890,  over  twenty-three  thousand  families, 
numbering  about  one  hundred  thousand  people,  were  forci- 
bly evicted  in  l^ew  York  City  owing  to  their  inability  to 
pay  rent,  and  one-tenth  of  all  who  died  in  that  city  during 
the  year  were  buried  in  the  Potters  Field. 

In  the  Arena  for  June,  1891,  will  be  found  a  description 
of  tenement  house  horrors,  by  Mr.  B.  O.  Flower.  He  has 
done  a  valuable  service  to  humanity  by  laying  before  the 
world  the  result  of  his  investigations.  After  describing  a 
family  whose  head  was  unable  to  find  work,  Mr.  Flower 
says: 

"This  poor  woman  supports  her  husband,  her  two  chil- 
dren and  herself,  by  making  pants  at  twelve  cents  a  pair. 
No  rest,  no  surcease,  a  perpetual  grind  from  early  dawn, 
often  till  far  into  the  night;  and  what  is  more  appalling, 
outraged  nature  has  rebelled;  the  long  months  of  semi- 
starvation  and  lack  of  sleep  have  brought  on  rheumatism, 
which  has  settled  in  the  joints  of  her  fingers,  so  that  every 
stitch  means  a  throb  of  pain.  The  afternoon  we  called  she 
was  completing  an  enormous  pair  of  custom-made  pants  of 
very  fine  blue  cloth,  for  one  of  the  largest  clothing  houses 
in  the  city.  The  suit  would  probably  bring  sixty  or  sixty- 
five  dollars,  yet  her  employer  graciously  informed  his  poor 
white  slave  that  as  the  garment  was  so  large  he  would  give 
her  an  extra  cent.  Thirteen  cents  for  fine  custom-made 
pants,  manufactured  for  a  wealthy  firm,  which  repeatedly 
asserts  that  its  clothing  is  not  made  in  tenement  houses! 
Thus  with  one  of  the  most  painful  diseases  enthroned  in 
that  part  of  the  body  which  must  move  incessantly  from 
dawn  till  midnight,  with  two  small  dependent  children  and 
a  husband  powerless  to  help  her,  this  poor  woman  struggles 
bravely,  confronted  ever  by  a  nameless  dread  of  impend- 
ing misfortune.  Eviction,  sickness,  starvation — such  are 
the  ever  present  spectres,  while  every  year  marks  the 
steady  encroadiment  of  disease  and  the  lowering  of  the 
register  of  vitality.  Moreover,  from  the  window  of  her 
soul  falls  the  light  of  no  star  athwart  the  pathway  of  life. 
24 


370  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

"In  another  tenement  Mr.  Flower  found  a  poor  widow 
with  three  children,  making  pants  at  twelve  cents  a  pair. 
One  of  the  children  had  been  engaged,  since  she  was  two 
and  one-half  years  old,  in  overcasting  the  long  seams  of 
the  garments,  made  by  her  mother !  In  the  attic  of  another 
tenement  a  widow  was  found  weeping  and  working  by  the 
side  of  a  cradle  where  lay  a  sick  child,  wliose  large  lum- 
inous eyes  shone  with  almost  phosphorescent  brilliancy 
from  great  cavernous  sockets,  as  they  wandered  from  one 
to  another,  with  a  wistful,  soul-querying  gaze.  Its  fore- 
head, was  large  and  prominent,  so  much  so  that  looking  at 
the  upper  part  of  the  head  one  would  little  imagine  the 
terrible  emaciation  of  the  body,  which  was  little  more  than 
skin  and  bones,  and  the  sight  of  which  spoke  more 
eloquently  than  words  of  the  ravages  of  slow  starvation 
and  wasting  disease.  The  woman  was  weeping  because 
she  had  been  notified  that  if  one  week's  rent  was  not  paid 
on  Saturday  she  would  be  evicted,  which  meant  death  to 
her  child  who  was  suffering  from  a  rupture,  and  for  whom 
she  was  unable  to  purchase  a  truss. 

"The  making  at  home  of  clothing,  cigars,  etc.,  in  New 
York  and  Brooklyn  is  paid  at  prices  on  which  no  women 
could  live  were  there  not  other  workers  in  the  family. 
Some  of  their  occupations  involved  great  risks  to  girls, 
such  as  the  loss  of  joints,  of  fingers,  of  the  hand,  or  some- 
times of  the  whole  arm. 

"One  of  the  official  statisticans  says  upon  this  subject: 
'  The  tenement  house  system  of  work  and  the  large  influx 
of  foreign  immigration  in  New  York  City  affected  women 
workers  more  than  any  other  class  of  laborers.  The  moral 
condition  of  the  working  women  is  influenced  for  evil  by 
the  tenement  house  home  in  a  way  too  vast  for  discussion 
here.  One  noteworthy  cause  of  immorality  is  the  taking 
of  men  as  lodgers  for  the  sake  of  extra  income.  Another 
is  the  long  distance  girls  are  compelled  to  traverse  after 
dark,  especially  on  leaving  stores  which  remain  open  till 
ten  or  eleven  o'clock  on  Saturday  night.  Another  is  the 
working  of  friendless  young  women  in  the  metropolis, 
where  they  live  without  home  restraint,  suffering  every 
conceivable  discomfort,  subject  to  long  periods  of  idleness, 
which  they  often  enter  upon  with  an  empty  purse.     And 


DIVES   AND   LAZARUS.  371 

yet,  the  truest  heroism  of  life  and  conduct  may  be  found 
here  beneath  raojs  and  dirt.  As  far  as  ventilation  is  con- 
cerned, a  properly  regulated  work-shop  is  the  exception. 
The  average  room  is  either  stuffy  and  close,  or  hot  and 
close,  and  even  where  windows  abound  they  are  seldom 
opened.  Toilet  facilities  are  generally  scant  and  inade- 
quate, a  hundred  workers  being  dependent  sometimes  on 
a  closet  or  sink,  and  that,  too,  often  out  of  order.' 

"There  are  many  factories  in  the  rooms  of  which  from 
one  hundred  to  two  hundred  women  and  men  are  packed 
like  sardines  in  a  box,  with  little  or  no  ventilation,  troubled 
by  the  inconveniences  of  steam,  smoke,  darkness,  and  all 
sorts  of  stenches  intensified  by  heat.  In  many  cases  no 
provisions  exist  for  escaping  the  danger  of  fire  and  other 
disasters.  There  are  industries  in  which  the  rooms  are  con- 
stantly filled  with  dust,  causing  dangerous  diseases  of  the 
organs  of  respiration.  Rheumatism  is  caused  by  dampness 
in  laundries,  dyeing  and  meat  packing  establishments,  can- 
neries, etc.  Rattling  machinery  has  caused  many  women 
to  become  hard  of  hearing;  excessive  heat  affects  their  entire 
system,  and  in  food  factories  salt  and  spices  give  them  asthma 
and  bronchitis.  Thousands  of  women  who  run  sewing  ma- 
chines or  are  compelled  to  stand  all  day  die  of  consumption 
and  other  diseases.  The  moral  conditions  of  the  shops  vary 
with  the  nature  of  the  occupation,  the  character  of  the  fore- 
men or  forewomen,  and  the  interest  the  proprietor  takes  in 
his  employes.  Wherever  the  sexes  work  together  indiscri- 
minately great  laxity  obtains,  and  in  many  an  instance  the 
employers  openly  declare  that  so  long  as  their  work  is  done 
they  do  not  inquire  or  care  how  bad  the  girls  may  be. 

"Considering  the  cost  of  living,  wages  are  little,  if  any, 
higher  in  New  York  than  in  other  cities. 

"In  some  sliops  week  workers  are  locked  out  for  the  half 
day  if  late,  or  docked  for  every  minute  of  time  lost,  an  ex- 
tra fine  being  often  added.  Fining  for  bad  work  is  general. 
The  shop  rules  are  stringent  in  most  cases,  and  in  certain 
industries  wages  are  reduced  b}^  charges  for  machine  rent, 
cotton,  repairs,  etc.,  to  an  extent  not  obtaining  elsewhere. 
1  he  seamstresses  constitute  the  poorest  class  and  a  regular 
system  of  fraud  is  practiced  upon  these  defenceless  crea- 
tures.    For  instance:     A  standing  advertisement  is  kept  in 


372  A    CALL   TO   ACTION. 

the  papers  asking  for  girls  to  do  tailor  sewing.  When  one 
applies  she  is  told  that  it  will  take  her  several  weeks  to 
learn,  but  that  good  wages  will  afterwards  be  paid.  The 
girl  aco^apts  and  goes  to  work,  and  after  four  or  five  weeks 
demands  pay.  Then  she  is  told  she  is  not  satisfactory  and 
cannot  be  employed.  Thus  many  hundreds  of  poor  girls 
not  only  give  their  labor  for  nothing  buj:  supply  their  own 
machines  to  the  fraudulent  factory,  thereby  saving  the 
bosses  a  considerable  outlay. 

"The  boarding  houses  where  working  women  are  com- 
pelled to  live  have  for  the  most  part  bare  and  filthy  floors, 
broken  or  blackened  window  panes  and  rickety  furniture. 
Meager  meals  of  ill-selected  and  ill-cooked  food,  the  sights, 
sounds  and  smells  of  the  filthy  surroundings — these  consti- 
tute the  home  comforts  provided  by  these  cheap  boarding 
and  lodging  houses.  Two  girls  are  sometimes  crowded  into 
a  little  hall  chamber,  carpetless  andfireless;  three,  and  even 
four  share  a  larger  room  without  comfort  or  convenience. 
The  dining  room  is  often  the  family  kitchen,  living  room 
and  laundry.  The  sleeping  rooms  are  so  cold  in  winter 
that  failing  utterly  to  keep  warm  until  the  hour  for  retiring, 
the  girls  are  allured  by  the  warmth  and  brightness  of  the 
dance  houses  and  saloons,  where  they  must  of  necessity, 
meet  undesirable  and  unsafe  acquaintances." 

LAZAEUS   AT   BOSTON. 

The  Kev.  Walter  J.  Swafiield,  of  the  Baptist  Bethel, 
Boston,  relates  in  the  Arena  for  February,  1891,  the  follow- 
ing facts  which  came  under  his  personal  observation  while 
visiting  the  poor  of  his  parish: 

"On  the  fifth  fioor  of  an  over-crowded  tenement  house 
in  the  north  end  of  Boston,  a  sick  man,  wife  and  six  chil- 
dren were  found  huddled  together  in  two  dingy,  smoky 
rooms,  neither  of  them  larger  than  8x8,  for  which  they  had 
to  pay  one  dollar  and  a  half  per  week.  The  only  means 
of  support  they  had  was  the  uncertain  revenue  derived  by 
the  woman  for  making  pants.  She  could  seldom  earn 
more  than  two  dolkxrs  and  a  quarter  per  week,  leaving  but 
seventy-five  cents  with  which  to  clothe  and  support  the 


DIVES    AND   LAZARUS.  3Y3 

family.  For  six  years  that  woman  had  worn  the  same 
dress,  while  the  children  had  but  one  or  a  part  of  one  gar- 
ment apiece. 

''Another  family  of  seven  persons,  invalid  husband,  wife 
and  five  children  were  crowded  in  a  room  hardly  large 
enough  for  two  persons.  All  the  furniture  in  the  room 
was  an  old  borrowed  stove,  one  broken  chair,  and  a  broken 
bedstead,  no  cooking  utensils.  The  children  had  scarcely 
a  rag  on  them,  and  for  their  dinner  was  eating  sliced  raw 
potatoes.  They  had  not  tasted  bread  for  three  days,  nor 
meat  for  weeks.  One  week  after  our  visit,  another  child 
was  born  into  the  family,  only  to  die  of  starvation  and  cold 
for  the  poor  mother  had  no  nourishment  to  give  it,  no  fuel 
nor  fire  for  two  days,  and  was  dependent  upon  the  kind- 
ness of  a  widow  in  the  next  room  for  a  warm  place  beside 
her  fire. 

"In  another  house  was  an  American  family  of  six  persons 
living  in  two  rooms  rented  at  one  dollar  and  a  half  a  week. 
The  man  out  of  work,  not  a  morsel  of  food  in  the  place,  no 
fuel  or  fire,  the  only  articles  of  furniture  being  a  stove,  a 
small  trunk,  a  dry  goods  box,  and  on  the  floor  in  the  cor- 
ner of  the  room  a  heap  of  seaweed  which  was  their  only 
bed.     It  had  been  gathered  from  the  beach  the  day  before. 

'*Not  far  from  this  family  was  found  another  room  full  of 
poor  and  suffering  ones  without  food  or  fire,  in  the  depth 
of  winter.  The  four  eldest  children  huddled  together  in 
bed  at  noontime  to  keep  each  other  warm,  while  the  hungry 
and  crying  baby  was  blue  with  cold  in  the  bosom  of  its 
starving  mother. 

"A  widow,  left  with  five  little  children  has  to  support  her- 
self and  family,  and  pay  one  dollar  and  a  half  per  week 
rent  for  two  small  rooms.  Her  only  hope  is  in  securing 
pants  enough  to  make  at  fourteen  cents  a  pair.  In  order 
to  keep  body  and  soul  together  she  must  teach  the  two  lit- 
tle girls  "Constance"  and  "Maggie,"  aged  five  and  three 
how  to  sew,  and  thus  do  their  part  in  keeping  the  wolf  from 
the  door.  These  two  babies  work  early  and  late,  the  five- 
year-old  seamstress  overcasting  the  long  seams  of  four  pairs 
of  pants  a  day,  and  the  three-year-old  dot  managing  tc 
overcast  two  pairs.  They  handle  the  needle  like  profes- 
sionals.    Mother  and  two  dauijhters  together  thus   earn 


374:  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

from  two  dollars  aud  a  quarter  to  two  dollars  and  a  half  a 
week,  after  paying  rent  having  but  a  single  dollar  left  to 
feed  and  clothe  the  whole  family. 

''The  time  of  my  visit  was  near  the  dinner  hour,  but  all 
the  preparation  for  the  principal  meal  of  the  day  was  the 
stirring  of  corn  meal  into  boiling  water. " 

AT   CHICAGO. 

In  the  latter  part   of  the  year  1891,  a  committee  from 
a  Chicago  Trade  and  Labor  Assembly,  at  the  request  of  a 
body  of  striking  cloakmakers,   made  an  investigation  of 
the  condition  of  that  class  of  workers  in  the  city.     They 
were  accompanied  by  an  officer  of  the  City  Health  Depart- 
ment, the  City  Attorney  and  artists  and  reporters  of  the 
local  press.     They  -found  that  thirteen  thousand  persons 
were  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  clothing  in  Chicago, 
over  one-half  of  whom  were  females.     In  order  to  reduce 
the  cost  of  production  the  firms  engaged  in  the  manufac- 
ture of  clothing  have   adopted   the  European   Sweating 
System,  which  is  in  brief,  as  follows:     The  material  for 
garments  is  cut  to  size  and  shape  and  delivered  by  the 
large  firms  to  individual  contractors  known   as  sweaters, 
who  relieve  the  firm  of  all  other  care  or  expense,  taking 
the  goods  to  what  are  known  as  sweating  dens,  usually 
located  in  the  poorest  neighborhoods  of  the  great  city. 
These  sweaters  are  employed  by  the  most  opulent  firms. 
The   committee  visited  a  large  number  of    these  dens, 
nearly  all  of  which  were  dwelling  houses  which  served  as 
living  and  sleeping  rooms  for  the  sweater's  family  and  the 
employes.     In   one  room  ten  feet  by  ^forty,   they  found 
thirty-nine  young  girls,  twelve  children  between  ten  and 
twelve  years  of  age,  eleven  men  and  the  sweater  and  his 
wife.   The  room  and  all  the  surroundings  were  filthy  in  the 
extreme.     The  rates  of  wages  were  of  course  very  low, 
and  yet  the  fear  of  discharge  rendered  it  almost  impossible 


DIVES   AND   LAZAKUS.  375 

to  obtain  satisfactory  information.  The  committee  found 
two  thousand  one  hundred  children  at  work  in  these  dis- 
mal places  who  were  under  age  and  employed  in  violation 
of  existing  laws  against  child  labor.  Sanitary  laws  were 
also  overridden  in  all  of  these  miserable  abodes.  We 
take  the  following  from  the  report  of  the  committee: 

"The  condition  of  the  places  visited  was  horrible.  Over- 
crowding, long  hours  and  low  pay  were  the  rule.  Girls  ten 
years  old  were  found  to  be  working  ten  and  twelve  hours  a 
day  for  80  cents  per  week.  Ten  girls  were  found,  none 
over  ten  years  old,  who  worked  sixteen  hours  a  day  for 
from  75  cents  to  $1.20  per  week.  In  a  DeKoven  street 
den  were  found  a  half  dozen  men  working  eighteen  hours 
a  day  for  from  $4  to  $9  per  week.  At  16§  Maxwell  street 
were  found  teo  men  that  worked  sixteen  hours  a  day  each 
and  received  $6.50  to  $9  per  week.  In  the  same  place 
were  six  girls  working  from  two  to  fourteen  hours  a  day 
whose  weekly  pay  averaged  $3.  One  child  was  found  in  a 
house  that  worked  for  75  cents  per  week.  At  455  South 
Canal  street  a  girl  was  found  who  declined  to  tell  what  she 
received  fearing  she  would  be  discharged,  and  discharge 
meant  starvation.  A  69  Judd  street  the  wages  of  the  men 
were  found  to  be  from  $5  to  $9  per  week,  and  one  child 
there  received  II  per  week.  The  women  worked  fourteen 
hours  a  day.  The  product  of  this  shop  was  sold  to  Mar- 
shall Field  &  Co.  At  151  Peoria  street,  is  a  cloak-finishing 
establis/hment.  Here  the  women  receive  one  and  one-half 
cents  each  for  finishing  cloaks.  One  woman  was  found  on 
the  street  with  a  bundle  of  cloaks  she  had  finished.  She 
said  that  by  hard  work  slie  finished  twenty  cloaks  a  da}'" 
and  earned  thirty  cents.  This  supported  herself  and  two 
babies.  The  place  258  Division  street  was  by  far  the 
worst  visited.  Eleven  men  worked  twelve  hours  a  day 
and  received  $5  to  $9.50  per  week.  Twelve  children  here 
worked  twelve  hours  for  75  cents  per  week.  The  place 
was  terribly  crowded,  there  being  no  water  or  light." 

And  yet  in  the  face  of  these  glaring  conditions,  which  are 
common  in  all  of  our  populous  cities,  empty  headed  politi- 


376  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

cal  charlatans  still  vex  the  public  with  their  puerile  rant 
about  protection  for  American  labor. 

DIVES   IN   HIS   PALACE. 

At  the  close  of  the  year  of  our  Lord  1891,  while  the 
Christian  world  was  celebrating  the  lowly  birth  in  the 
manger  at  Bethlehem,  and  while  the  wretched  sweaters  of 
Chicago  were  bending  their  aching  backs  in  their  dismal 
prisons,  a  wealthy  merchant  of  that  city  moved  into  his  re- 
splendent mansion  which  had  just  been  finished  for  his 
reception.  He  celebrated  the  event  with  a  week  of  festiv- 
ity. One  of  the  local  papers  gave  the  following  descrip- 
tion of  this  palace: 

"It  is  located  on  Michigan  boulevard  and  Thirty-fourth 
street,  and  has  been  in  the  course  of  construction  for  nearly 
two  years.  Among  its  principal  features  is  an  immense 
ball-room,  which  includes  a  completely  fitted  stage,  a  com- 
plete barber  shop,  a  music  room,  which  is  divided  by  Mex- 
ican onyx  columns  from  a  coueervatory,  and  one  of  the 
finest  private  libraries  in  the  country.  On  the  floor  of  the 
drawing  room  is  a  large  aubixon  rug,  woven  in  one  piece, 
the  cost  of  which  alone  was  upwards  of  ten  thousand  dol- 
lars. The  floor  of  the  large  reception  room  is  of  Italian 
marble  mosaic,  and  one  of  its  attractive  features  is  an  old 
moorish  fireplace.  The  dining  room  walls  are  finished  in 
old  tapestry  of  almost  fabulous  value.  The  bath  rooms  are 
white  marble  and  onyx,  the  main  one  haying  an  onyx 
wainscoting  five  feet  in  height,  and  above  this  a  frescoing 
of  pond  lily  design.  There  are  study  rooms  for  the  youth- 
ful members  of  the  family,  while  the  apartments  that  have 
been  reserved  for  guests  would  almost  compare  with  the 
descriptions  that  have  been  handed  down  of  portions  of 
the  interior  of  Solomon's  temple." 

OUTER  DARKNESS. 

The  following  dispatch  from  London  concerning  the 
recent  Westphalia  strike,  is  enough  to  shock  the  sensibil- 
ities of  Christendom  and  fill  the  world  with  mourning: 


DIVES   AND   LAZAEUS.  377 

London,  April  28,  1891. — "A  Berlin  dispatch  says  that 
the  severe  measures  of  depression  in  Westphalia  have  had 
their  effect  and  the  strikers  are  thoroughly  cowed.  Many 
of  their  families  are  in  a  starving  condition  and  expected 
remittances  from  Belgium  and  England  have  not  arrived. 
The  strikers  are  not  permitted  to  hold  meetings  and  if  a 
few  are  seen  gathering  they  are  at  once  scattered  by  the 
police.  Consequently  they  have  Kttle  opportunity  to 
arrange  for  common  action." 

AND  HAS  IT  COME  TO  US  SO  SOON? 

About  the  close  of  the  recent  Jackson  Park  World's  Fair 
strike,  we  cKpped  from  the  columns  of  one  of  the  Chicago 
dailies  the  following  local  editorial.  Speaking  of  the  poor 
strikers  the  paper  said: 

"The  outlook  discouraged  them.  None  had  any  great 
supply  of  money  and  few  had  places  to  sleep.  The  out- 
look was  altogether  discouraging,  and  was  made  even  more 
so  b}''  the  action  of  the  police,  who  broke  up  the  picket 
lines  as  fast  as  they  were  formed,  and  even  refused  to  allow 
them  to  congregate  in  any  numbers. 

About  9  o'clock  in  the  morning  a  hundred  or  so  weary 
strikers  were  stretched  in  the  sun  on  the  prairie  near  Park- 
side  endeavoring  to  get  some  sleep,  when  word  was  passed 
for  a  meeting  at  Sixty-seventh  street  and  Stony  Island 
avenue.  By  9:30  o'clock  two  hundred  men  had  cjongrc- 
gated  there  and  Dr.  Willoughby,  the  owner  of  the  lot, 
objected.  He  notified  the  police  that  he  did  not  want  any 
trespassing  on  his  premises,  and  Lieut.  Kehm  and  a  squad 
of  ten  officers  were  dispatched  to  the  scene.  He  ordered 
the  strikers  to  disperse,  but  they  failed  to  obey  with  alac- 
rity, and  the  police  had  to  drive  them  off.  There  was  some 
slight  resistance,  and  several  heads  suffered  in  consequence 
from  contact  with  policemon's  batons." 

We  trust  the  brief  rar^es  of  this  chai^ter  mav  suffice  to 
call  the  attention  of  the  reader  to  the  ghastly  condition  of 
American  society  and  to  remind  him  of  the  imperative  call 
which  is  made  upon  him  as  an  individual  to  do  all  in  his 


378  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

power  to  arrest  the  alarming  tendencies  of  our  times.  In 
the  opinion  of  the  writer,  unless  the  people  of  America 
shall  immediately  take  political  matters  into  their  own 
hands,  the  contrasts  suggested  in  this  chapter  portend  a 
tragic  future.  The  millionaire  and  the  pauper  cannot,  in 
this  country,  long  dwell  together  in  peace,  and  it  is  idle  to 
attempt  to  patch  up  a  truce  between  them.  Enlightened 
self  respect  and  a  quickened  sense  of  justice  are  impelling 
the  multitude  to  demand  an  interpretation  of  the  anomal- 
ous spectacle,  constantly  presented  before  their  eyes,  of  a 
world  filled  with  plenty  and  yet  multitudes  of  people 
suffering  for  all  that  goes  to  make  life  desirable.  They 
are  calling  to  know  why  idleness  should  dwell  in  luxury 
and  those  who  toil  in  want;  and  they  are  inquiring  why 
one-half  of  God's  children  should  be  deprived  of  homes 
upon  a  planet  which  is  large  enough  for  all.  The  world 
will  find  a  solution  for  these  insufferable  afflictions  in  the 
glorious  era  but  just  ahead.  Even  now  the  twilight  dis- 
closes the  outlines  of  a  generous  inheritance  for  all  and 
we  hear  the  chirping  of  sweet  birds  making  ready  to 
welcome  with  melody  and  gladness  the  advent  of  tbe^  full 
orbed  day. 


<M/(^^\/\^ 


GHAPTBR  XIII. 


THE  PINKERTONS. 

The  spirit  of  the  corporation  is  aggressive  and  essentially 
«rarlike.  Having  usurped  Sovereign  power  by  stealth 
«^hen  the  people  were  slumbering — having  seized  the  great 
instruments  of  commerce  and  captured  the  sources  oi 
wealth  and  the  outlets  of  trade,  the  managers  of  these  insti- 
tutions naturally  fear  an  outbreak  among  the  victims  of 
their  rapacity.  They  quietly  and  very  naturally  seek  to 
control  Government — both  State  and  National — and 
through  them  the  army  and  militia.  But  they  do  not  stop 
here.  They  equip  an  army  of  their  own  which  they  can 
call  into  active  service  at  any  time  and  transport  with  celer- 
ity from  point  to  point.  The  skeleton  of  this  organization 
is  kept  constantly  in  their  employ.  They  have  a  Com- 
mander-in-chief, Allen  Pinkerton,  with  a  staff  of  subordi- 
nate oflScers,  and  generally  the  men  employed  under  them 
are  ignorant,  insolent,  cruel  and  blood-thirsty.  From  the 
best  information  which  can  be  obtained  they  now  number 
thirty-two  thousand  men,  which  makes  the  force  about 
seven  thousand  stronger  than  the  Regular  Army  of  the 
United  States.  They  are  not  all  constantly  employed  but 
are  subject  to  orders  at  any  time. 

The  student  of  history  will  readily  recall  the  historic 
parallel  of  this.  The  wealthy  barons  of  Italy  resorted  to 
the  same  expedient  under  the  feudal  system.  Single  indi- 
yiduals  controlled  the  vast  sources  of  supply  and  owned 


380  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

and  dominated  vast  areas  and  even  whole  provinces  of  the 
country.  These  powerful  barons  kept  in  their  employ  a 
class  of  men  called  "bravos,  "  whose  brutal  and  lawless 
character  rendered  them  the  scourge  of  their  time  and  a 
terror  to  the  defenseless.  They  were  expert  in  assassina- 
tion and  always  at  the  bidding  of  those  who  desired  to  rid 
themselves  of  dangerous  enemies  or  troublesome  neighbors. 
The  feudal  barons  find  their  counterpart  in  our  railroad, 
iron,  coal,  and  oil  kings,  and  in  the  controlling  spirits  of 
the  vast  corporations  and  trusts  of  the  country,  whilst  our 
modern  Pinkertons  answer  to  the  bravos.  The  bravos 
were  the  hired  and  secret  police  of  the  wealthy  barons. 
The  Pinkertons  are  the  hired  police  or  rather  the  invisible 
standing  army  of  our  modern  corporations;  and  both  baron 
and  corporate  king,  bravos  and  Pinkertons,  owe  their 
origin  to  the  same  causes,  though  operating  in  widely  sep- 
arated centuries. 

The  surrender  of  the  Sovereign  functions  of  Government 
to  private  individuals  is  a  shameful  betrayal  of  a  sacred 
trust.  When  these  Sovereign  powers  are  used  for  the 
accumulation  of  vast  and  overshadowing  private  fortunes 
the  outrage  has  culminated,  and  general  discontent  quickly 
ensues.  This  has  been  the  result  in  all  ages  and  among 
all  peoples.  When  Government  surrenders  its  rightful 
powers  to  individuals,  to  that  extent  it  is  dissolved — at 
least  its  powers  are  in  abeyance,  and  the  transition  to  force 
and  violence  is  then  both  easy  and  natural.  The  baron 
himself  sees  and  feels  that  it  is  unreasonable  to  expect  the 
multitude  to  faithfully  guard  those  who  are  depredating 
upon  them,  and  hence  some  one  must  be  hired  for  this  pur- 
pose. When  hired  the  bravo  or  Pinkerton  recognizes  his 
employer  as  his  superior  officer  whom  it  is  his  duty  to  obey. 
Can  any  one  call  this  Democratic  Government  ?  It  is  ter- 
rorism and  force  dealt  out  at  the  hands  of  mercenaries  and 


THE   PINKEETONS.  381 

hireliugs.  Necessary  force,  prudently,  but  firmly  exercised 
by  the  reojular  constituted  authorities,  always  meets  with 
the  approval  of  well-disposed  citizens  and  is  rarely  ever 
resisted,  except  where  the  [repressive  policy,  long  estab- 
lished, is  unaccompanied  by  any  effort  or  intention  to 
remove  abuses.  Even  under  such  circumstances  men  are 
more  disposed  to  submit  to  injustice  than  they  are  to  rebel. 
But  chartered  corporations  for  pecuniary  profit  exist  only 
by  usurpation,  as  we  have  demonstrated  in  our  chapter  on 
"Evolution  in  Crime,"  and  the  spirit  of  audacity  remains 
with  them.  Having  usurped  the  functions  of  the  State  they 
feel  that  they  are  the  State,  and  do  not  hesitate  to  inso- 
lently exercise  its  power.' 

Those  hirelings  now  infest  all  our  populous  cities,  prowl 
aro".ind  every  mining  district  and  patrol  every  labor  and 
manufacturing  center  in  the  country.  If  a  strike  or  a  lock- 
out occurs,  the  Pinkertons  are  first  to  put  in  an  appearance. 
Public  sentiment  is  everywhere  opposed  to  their  presence 
and  interference  in  labor  troubles.  But  this  does  not  deter 
them  in  the  least.  They  do  not  command  the  peace.  They 
terrorize  the  people  and  provoke  to  riot.  It  is  the  State's 
duty  to  protect  both  life  and  property  as  well  as  to  keep 
the  peace  between  its  subjects.  A  failure  to  discharge  this 
duty  breeds  distrust  and  seriously  undermines  popular 
respect  for  the  authority  of  the  state. 

Some  of  the  States  of  the  Union  are  completely  dominated 
by  corporate  influence  and  even  recognize  the  Pinkerton 
policy  in  their  laws.  This  is  notably  the  case  in  Pennsyl- 
vania. The  following  laws  enacted  in  1865-6,  are  now  in 
full  force  in  that  State: 

"19.  Any  corporation  owning  or  using  a  railroad  in  this 
state  may  apply  to  the  Governor  to  commission  such  per- 
sons as  said  corporation  may  designate,  to  act  as  police- 
mftn  for  said  corporation. 


382  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

"20.  The  Governor,  upon  such  application,  may  appoint 
such  persons,  or  so  many  of  them  as  he  may  deem  proper, 
to  be  such  policemen,  and  shall  issue  to  such  persons,  so 
appointed,  a  commission  to  act  as  such  policemen. 

"21.  Every  policeman  so  appointed  shall,  before  enter- 
ing upon  the  duties  of  his  office,  take  and  subscribe  the 
oath  required  by  the  eisjhth  article  of  the  Constitution, 
before  the  recorder  of  any  county  through  which  the  rail- 
road, for  which  said  policeman  is  appointed,  shall  be 
located;  which  oath,  after  being  duty  recorded  by  such 
recorder,  shall  be  filed  in  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of 
State,  and  a  certified  copy  of  such  oath,  made  by  the 
recorder  of  the  proper  county,  shall  be  recorded  with  the 
commission  through  or  into  which  the  railroad  for  which 
the  policeman  is  appointed,  may  run,  and  in  which  it  is 
intended  the  said  policeman  shall  act;  and  such  policeman 
so  appointed,  shall  severally  possess  and  exercise  all  the 
powers  of  policemen  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  in  the 
several  coulities  in  which  they  shall  be  so  authorized  to  act 
as  aforesaid,  and  the  keepers  of  jails  or  lock-ups  or  station- 
houses,  in  any  of  the  said  counties  are  required  to  receive 
all  persons  arrested  by  said  policemen  for  the  commission 
of  an  offense  against  the  laws  of  this  Commonwealth,  upon 
or  along  said  railroad,  or  the  premises  of  any  such  corpor- 
ation, to  be  dealt  with  according  to  law. 

"22.  Such  railroad  police  shall,  when  on  duty,  severally 
wear  a  metallic  shield,  with  the  words  "railway  police," 
and  the  name  of  the  corporation  for  which  appointed,  in- 
scribed thereon;  and  said  shield  shall  always  be  worn  in 
plain  view,  except  when  employed  as  detectives. 

"23.  The  compensation  of  such  police  shall  be  paid  by 
the  companies,  for  which  the  policemen  are  respectively 
appointed,  as  may  be  agreed  upon  between  them." 

By  the  act  of  April  11,  1866,  the  above  act  was  extended 
so  as  to  embrace  "all  corporations,  firms,  or  individuals 
owning,  leasing  or  being  in  possession  of  any  colliery,  fur- 
naces, or  rolling  mills  within  the  commonwealth." 

The  words  "Coal  and  Iron  Police"  are  engraved  on  the 
shield  of  policemen  appointed  under  this  act. 


THE   PINKEKTONS.  383 

WHAT  IT  MEANS. 

This  statute  simply  transfers  to  the  corporations,  and  e^en 
to  individuals,  the  most  delicate  and  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant powers  of  the  State,  the  power  to  preserve  the  pub- 
lic peace  and  to  protect  the  life  and  the  property  of 
citizens.  It  makes  the  superintendent  of  the  rollino^  mills, 
the  colliery,  the  furnace,  or  the  yardmaster  at  a  railroad 
station,  the  }ud^e  of  when  life  shall  be  taken  or  when  the 
citizen  shall  be  deprived  of  his  liberty.  It  will  be  noted 
that  these  corporation  policemen  wear  the  badge  of  their 
masters  and  are  paid  by  them,  and,  of  course,  are  subject 
to  their  orders.  When,  however,  it  suits  the  wishes  of  the 
corporation  managers  to  send  "detectives  among  their  work- 
men to  insnare  them  and  to  manufacture  excuses  for  their 
discharge  or  arrest,  then,  as  the  reader  will  observe,  the  law 
provides  that  the  badge  or  shield  may  be  omitted.  The  cor- 
poration may  then  send  hired  spi€s  among  the  toilers,  bear- 
ing the  commission  of  the  State  and  receiving  such  com- 
pensation as  may  have  been  "agreed  upon"  between  them- 
selves and  their  masters.  The  State  is  thus  made  a  party 
to  the  petty  persecutions  of  those  whose  business  it  is  to 
put  labor  to  the  rack  and  becomes  a  party  to  a  system  of 
surveillance  which  is  both  despicable  and  cruel.  This  tends 
to  violence  and  public  tumult  and  is  subversive  of  good 
order  and  social  security. 

HOW   IT   OPERATES. 

The  recent  Chicago  strikes,  the  street  car  strikes  at  New 
York,  the  long  to  be  remembered  railroad  strike  in  the 
Southwest  and  the  troubles  of  1886- Y,  in  the  Pennsylvania 
coal  regions,  as  well  as  the  more  recent  bloody  encounters 
in  the  coke  manufacturing  sections  of  that  State,  have  all 
been  aggravated  by  the  presence  of  these  hirelings. 


384  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

The  bloody  transaction  which  took  place  at  the  More  wood 
works,  near  Greensburf^,  Pa.,  on  the  morning  of  April  2, 
1891,  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  operation  of  the  statute 
given  above,  and  will  call  attention  to  the  direful  conse- 
quences which  are  sure  to  follow  the  introduction  of  corpor- 
ation police  and  spies  into  American  labor  districts  and 
cities.  The  following  account  is  taken  from  the  associate 
press  dispatch  concerning  the  Greensburg  affair  which 
appeared  in  all  the  papers  of  April  2,  1891: 

"The  deputies  who  took  part  in  the  riot  were  all  full 
grown,  experienced  men,  and  they  were  armed  to  the  teeth. 
More  deliberate  arrangements  for  contemplated  trouble 
were  never  made.  Last  night  Superintendent  Picard  sum- 
moned his  deputies  and  told  them  a  raid  was  contemplated 
on  the  works.  He  formed  them  into  a  line  and  examined 
the  firearms  of  each  one.  He  then  presented  them  with 
Winchester  rifles,  drilled  them  in  the  use  of  the  weapon 
and  ordered  them  on  duty.  When  the}''  were  retiring  Super- 
intendent Picard,  said: 

"I  will  be  in  command.  I  have  received  positive  infor- 
mation that  our  works  are  to  be  raided.  I  have  promised 
protection  to  our  men  and  I  must  give  it.  When  the  raid- 
ers come,  obey  me.  Fire  the  first  shot  into  the  air.  If  the 
raiders  do  not  retreat,  fire  the  second  shot  and  keep  on  fir- 
ing while  you  have  ammunition.  Protect  the  company's 
property,  protect  the  men  at  work  and  protect  j^our  own 
lives.  The  man  in  my  employ  who  runs  I  will  shoot  dead 
on  the  spot.  Any  man  who  is  not  willing  to  accept  my 
terms  will  please  drop  into  the  rear  and  I  will  send  him 
home  under  guard. 

"There  was  no  one  dropped  back.  All  the  deputies 
looked  grim  and  serious  and  awaited  further  orders. 

"Is  everybody  satisfied?"  asked  the  Superintendent. 

"Yes,  yes  all,"  rang  out  all  along  the  line.  Each  man 
was  provided  with  twenty-six  cartridges  and  taken  to  a  con- 
venient point." 

"Superintendent  Picard,"  who  was  "in  command"  was 
an  employe  of  the  corporation  whose  works  were  supposed 


THE   PINKEETONS.  385 

to  be  in  danger,  and  was  acting  under  the  authority  of  the 
Pennsylvania  statute  above  recited.  The  men  under  him 
were  hired  police  and  their  names  were  on  the  corporation 
pay-roll. 

On  the  morning  of  April  2,  a  company  of  laborers  were 
observed  marching  up  the  street  in  the  direction  of  the  Com- 
pany's stables.  This  was  taken  as  foreshadowing  an  attack 
upori  the  Company's  property,  and  the  "deputies"  were  at 
once  ordered  to  open  fire.  Result,  nine  men  killed  and 
twenty-seven  wounded.  Accounts  dififer  as  to  the  provoca- 
tion. Grave  doubt  is  expressed  by  disinterested  citizens  as 
to  whether  there  was  any  purpose  on  the  part  of  the  strik- 
ers to  harm  either  persons  or  property,  and  the  question  as 
to  who  gave  the  order  to  fire  is  in  dispute  between  the 
Superintendent  and  his  lackeys.  This  dispute  of  itself 
shows  the  absence  of  any  well  defined  provocation;  for  if 
there  was  any  imminent  danger  there  would  be  no  disposi- 
tion to  deny  giving  the  order.  One  of  the  strikers  made 
the  following  statement  concerning  the  firing: 

"  I  was  with  the  body  of  men  on  the  bridge  and  stopped 
for  a  moment  to  light  mj''  cigar.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
rumors  of  bombs  had  filled  the  minds  of  the  guards,  for 
they  took  the  lighting  of  my  cigar  as  portending  something 
dangerous.  The  guards  then  fired  directly  toward  the 
point  where  I  stood  and  the  men  fell  all  around  me.  We 
fled  instanly,  only  leaving  men  enough  to  stand  by  our 
fallen  comrades,  some  twenty  in  all.  Aftei  the  shooting  I 
heard  some  one  in  command  of  the  guards  exclaim:  "Don't 
be  too  quick." 

Another  dispatch   dated  April  2,  1891,  announced  the 

arrival  of  five  hundred  Pinkerton  detectives  in  the  coke 

regions.     Their  introduction  caused  great  indignation  and 

exasperation  among  the  laborers  as  might  well  have  been 

expected. 
25 


386  A   CALL  TO    ACTION. 

It  is  the  plain  duty  of  the  Governors  of  the  various  States 
to  forbid  the  presence  of  private  police  within  their  States 
and  especially  at  points  where  trouble  is  anticipated.  And 
if  they  make  their  appearance  they  should  be  dealt  with 
like  all  disturbers  of  the  peace  and  be  punisheii  for  their 
unlawful  assumption  of  power.  Where  the  laws  wink  at 
the  use  of  such  police  force,  the  Governor,  as  the  law  is 
not  mandatory,  should  refuse  to  appoint  and  commission 
them.  There  is  ample  power  in  the  various  States  to  pre- 
serve the  peace  and  to  protect  life  and  property  without  the 
assistance  of  these  modern  bravos. 

State  Legislatures  should  at  once  pass  stringent  laws 
forbidding  the  employment  of  this  disturbing  force  within 
their  borders.  They  are  only  calculated  to  precipitate  riots 
and  bloodshed,  and  they  endanger  both  life  and  property. 
It  is  the  solemn  duty  of  the  State  to  protect  the  lives  and 
property  of  its  citizens,  aud  regularly  constituted  officials 
should  always  be  in  command  in  times  of  public  danger. 


CHAPTKR    XIV. 


TRUSTS, 

A  Trust  is  defined  to  be  a  combination  of  many  compet- 
ing concerns  under  one  management.  The  object  is  to 
increase  profits  through  reduction  of  cost,  Limitation  of 
product  and  increase  of  the  price  to  the  consumer.  The 
term  is  now  applied,  and  very  properly,  to  all  kinds  of 
combinations  in  trade  which  relate  to  prices,  and  without 
regard  to  whether  all  or  only  part  of  the  objects  named 
are  had  in  view. 

Combinations  which  we  now  call  trusts  have  existed  in 
this  country  for  a  considerable  period,  but  they  have  only 
attracted  general  attention  for  about  ten  years.  "We  have 
in  our  possession  copies  of  the  agreements  of  the  Standard 
Oil  and  Sugar  Trusts.  The  former  is  dated  January  2, 
1882,  and  the  latter  August  6,  1887. 

Trusts  vary  somewhat  in  their  forms  of  organization. 
This  is  caused  by  the  character  of  the  property  involved 
and  the  variety  of  objects  to  be  attained.  The  great  trusts 
of  the  country  consist  of  an  association  or  consolidation  of 
a  number  of  asseciations  engaged  in  the  same  line  of 
business — each  company  in  the  trust  being  first  separately 
incorporated.  The  stock  of  these  companies  is  then  turned 
over  to  a  board  of  trustees  who  issue  back  trust  certificates 
in  payment  for  the  stock  transferred.  The  trust  selects  its 
own  board  of  directors  and  henceforth  has  complete  con- 
trol of  the  entire  business  and  can  regulate  prices,  limit  or 


388  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

stimulate  production  as  they  may  deem  best  for  the  parties 
concerned  in  the  venture.  The  trust  itself  is  not  neces- 
sarily incorporated.  Many  of  the  strongest,  such  as  the 
"Standard  Oil  Trust,"  the  "Sugar  Trust,"  and  "The 
American  Cotton  Seed  Oil  Trust"  and  others  are  not. 
They  are  the  invisible  agents  of  associated  artificial  in- 
tangible beings.  They  are  difficult  to  find,  still  harder  to 
restrain  and  so  far  as  present  experience  has  gone  they  are 
practically  a  law  unto  themselves. 

The  power  of  these  institutions  has  grown  to  be  almost 
incalculable.  Trustees  of  the  Standard  Oil  Trust  have 
issued  certificates  to  the  amount  of  190,000,000,  and  each 
certificate  is  worth  to-day  $165  in  the  market,  which  makes 
their  real  capital  at  least  $148,500,000,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  added  strength  of  their  recent  European  associations. 
They  have  paid  quarterly  dividends  since  their  organiza- 
tion in  1882.  The  profits  amount  to  120,000,000  per  year. 
The  Trust  is  managed  by  a  Board  of  Trustees  all  of  whom 
reside  in  New  York.  The  combine  really  began  in  1869, 
but  the  present  agreement  dates  no  further  back  than  Jan- 
uary, 1882.  The  only  record  kept  of  the  meetings  of  these 
Trustees  is  a  note  stating  that  the  minutes  of  the  previous 
meeting  were  read  and  approved.  The  minutes  themselves 
are  then  destroyed.  These  facts  were  brought  to  light  b}'" 
an  investigation  before  the  New  York  Senate  February, 
1888.  Col.  George  Bliss  and  Gen.  Koger  A.  Pry  or  acted 
as  council  for  the  people  and  a  great  many  things  were 
brought  out  concerning  the  Standard,  and  a  multitude 
of  other  combines,  which  had  not  before  been  well  under- 
stood. John  D.  Kockefeller,  Charles  Pratt,  Henry  M. 
Kogers,  H.  M.  Flagler,  Benjamin  Brewster,  J.  N.  Archi- 
bald, William  Rockefeller  and  W.  H.  Tilford  are  the  trustees 
and  they  personally  own  a  majority  of  the  stock.  Seven 
hundred  other  persons  own  the  remainder.     This  trust  holds 


TRUSTS.  389 

the  stock  of  forty-two  corporations,  extending  into  thirteen 
States.  The  Cotton  Seed  Oil  Trust  holds  the  stock  ol 
eighty-five  corporations  extending  into  fifteen  States. 

Trust  combinations  now  dominate  the  following  product? 
and  divisions  of  trade:  Kerosene  Oil,  Cotton  Seed  Oil, 
Sugar,  Oat  meal,  Starch,  White  Corn  Meal,  Straw  Paper, 
Pearled  Barley,  Coal,  Straw  Board,  Lumber,  Castor  Oil, 
Cement,  Linseed  Oil,  Lard,  School  Slate,  Oil  Cloth,  Salt, 
Cattle,  Meat  Products,  Gas,  Street  Eailways,  Whisky, 
Paints,  Rubber,  Steel,  Steel  Eails,  Steel  and  Iron  Beams, 
Cars,  Nails,  Wrought  Iron  Pipes,  Iron  Nuts,  Stoves,  Lead, 
Copper,  Envelopes,  Wall  Paper,  Paper  Bags,  Paving  Pitch, 
Cordage,  Coke,  Reaping,  Binding  and  Mowing  Machines, 
Threshing  Machines,  Plows,  Glass,  Water  Works,  Ware- 
houses, Sand  Stone,  Granite,  Upholsterers'  Felt,  Lead  Pen- 
cils, Watches  and  Watch  Cases,  Clothes  Wringers,  Carpets, 
Undertakers'  Goods  and  Coffins,  Planes,  Breweries,  Mill- 
ing, Flour,  Silver  Plate,  Plated  Ware  and  a  vast  variety  of 
other  lines  of  trade. 

The  Standard  Oil  and  its  complement,  the  American 
Cotton  Oil  Trust,  were  the  advance  guard  of  the  vast  army 
of  like  associations  which  have  overrun  and  now  occupy 
every  section  of  the  country  and  nearly  all  departments  of 
trade.  The  Standard  has  developed  into  an  international 
combine  and  has  brought  the  world  under  its  yoke.  In  1890 
the  largest  German  and  Dutch  petroleum  houses  fell  under 
the  control  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  and  the  oil  import- 
ing companies  of  Bremen,  Hababurg  and  Stettin  were  united 
by  the  Standard  into  a  German-American  Petroleum  Com- 
pany, with  its  seat  at  Bremen.  In  1891  the  Paris  Rothchilds, 
who  control  the  Russian  oil  fields,  effected  a  combination 
with  the  Standard  Oil  Trust,  which  makes  the  combine 
world  wide;  and  so  far  as  this  important  article  of  consump- 
tion is  concerned,  it  places  all  mankind  at  their  mercy. 


390  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

Our  informatioa  concerning  this  international  oil  trust  is 
derived  from  the  report  concerning  the  Petroleum  Monop- 
oly of  Europe  by  Consul-General  Edwards,  of  Berlin,  made 
to  the  Secretary  of  State,  Jane  25,  1891,  and  published  in 
Consular  Reports  No.  131. 

Now  that  the  Petroleum  Combine  has  accomplished  the 
conquest  of  the  world,  what  is  to  hinder  every  other  branch 
of  business  from  accomplishing  the  same  end?  The  Stand- 
ard has  led  the  way  and  demonstrated  the  feasibility  of 
such  gigantic  enterprises  and  others  will  doubtless  be  quick 
to  follow.  Already,  indeed,  the  Anthracite  coal  barons 
have  followed  their  example  so  far  as  this  country  is  con- 
cerned, and  the  "Big  Four,"  who  control  the  meat  products 
of  this  country,  have  reached  out  and  subsidized  the  ship 
room  and  other  facilities  for  international  trade  in  that  line. 
We  hear  also  well  authenticated  rumors  that  other  combi- 
nations, looking  to  the  complete  control  of  every  branch  of 
mercantile  business,  are  already  in  existence  and  making 
what  they  regard  as  very  satisfactory  progress. 

The  Sugar  Trust,  which  now  fixes  the  price  of  3,000,- 
000,000  pounds  of  sugar  annually  consumed  in  the  United 
States,  is  managed  upon  substantially  the  same  plan  as  the 
Standard  Oil  Trust,  and  so,  in  fact,  are  all  of  the  great 
combines.  They  rule  the  whole  realm  of  commerce  with  a 
rod  of  iron  and  levy  tribute  upon  the  country  amounting 
to  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  annually — an  imposition 
which  the  people  would  not  think  for  a  moment  of  submit- 
ting to  if  exacted  by  their  Government. 


ARE   TRUSTS   LEGAL 


It  is  clear  that  trusts  are  contrary  to  public  policy  and 
hence  in  conflict  with  the  Common  law.  They  are  monop- 
olies organized  to  destroy  competition  and  restrain  trade . 
Enlightened  public  policy  favors  competition  in  the  present 


TEUSTS.  39] 

condition  of  organized  society.  It  was  held  in  1880,  Cen 
tral  Ohio  Salt  Company  vs.  Guthrie,  35  Ohio  St.,  666,  thai 
a  trust  was  illesjal  and  void .  The  Pennsylvania  courts 
held  the  same  way  against  the  Coal  Trust  of  that  State. 
Morris  Coal  Company  vs.  Vorday,  68  Pa.  St.,  173. 

In  1869  a  coal  company  in  New  York  had  contracted  tc 
buy  coal  from  several  lirms  upon  condition  that  they  would 
not  sell  coal  to  other  persons  in  that  locality.  The  party 
buying  the  coal  did  not  pay  for  it,  whereupon  suit  was 
brought  to  collect.  The  court  refused  to  enforce  the  bar- 
gain, holding  that  the  contract  was  illegal.  Arnot  vs.  Pit- 
tison  Coal  Company,  68  N.  Y.,  558.  The  same  rule  was 
upheld  by  the  courts  at  Louisiana  in  1859.  In  Illinois  a 
Grain  Dealer's  Combine  was  held  to  be  illegal.  The  ques- 
tion arose  in  a  suit  brought  to  compel  a  proper  division  of 
the  profits.  The  court  refused  to  enforce  the  agreement. 
See  Croft  vs.  McConoughy,  79  111.,  346.  The  same  char- 
acter of  decisions  will  be  found  in  perhaps  a  majority  of 
the  States.  Indeed,  since  the  days  when  Coke  was  Lord 
Chief  Justice  of  England,  more  than  a  century  and  a  half 
ago,  the  courts  in  both  England  and  America  have  held 
such  combinations  to  be  illegal  and  void.  See  "Case  of 
the  Monopolies,"  11  Coke,  84. 

It  is  contended  by  those  interested  in  Trusts  that  they 
tend  to  cheapen  production  and  diminish  the  price  of  the 
article  to  the  consumer.  It  is  conceded  that  these  results 
may  follow  temporarily  and  even  permanently  in  some  in- 
stances. But  it  is  not  the  rule.  When  such  effects  ensue 
they  are  merely  incidental  to  the  controlling  object  of  the 
association.  Trusts  are  speculative  in  their  purposes  and 
formed  to  make  money.  Once  they  secure  control  of  a 
given  line  of  business  they  are  masters  of  the  situation  and 
can  dictate  to  the  two  great  classes  with  which  they  deal — 
the  producer  of  the  raw  material  and  the  consumer  of  the 


392  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

finished  product.  They  limit  the  price  of  the  raw  material 
so  as  to  impoverish  the  producer,  drive  him  to  a  sinsjle 
market,  reduce  the  price  of  every  class  of  labor  connected 
with  the  trade,  throw  out  of  employment  large  numbers  of 
persons  who  liad  before  been  engaged  in  a  meritorious  call- 
ing and  finally,  prompted  by  insatiable  avarice,  they  in- 
crease the  price  to  the  consumer  and  thus  complete  the 
circle  of  their  depredations.  Diminished  prices  is  the  bribe 
which  they  throw  into  the  market  to  propitiate  the  public. 
They  will  take  it  back  when  it  suits  them  to  do  so. 

The  Trust  is  organized  commerce  with  the  Golden  Rule 
excluded  and  the  trustees  exempted  from  the  restraints  of 
conscience. 

They  argue  that  competition  means  war  and  is  there- 
fore destructive.  The  Trust  is  eminently  docile  and  hence 
seeks  to  destroy  competition  in  order  that  we  may  have 
peace.  But  the  peace  which  they  give  us  is  like  that  which 
exists  after  the  leopard  has  devoured  the  kid.  This  pro- 
fessed desire  for  peace  is  a  false  pretense.  They  dread  the 
war  of  competition  because  the  people  share  in  the  spoils. 
When  rid  of  that  they  always  turn  their  guns  upon  the  " 
masses  and  depredate  without  limit  or  mercy.  The  main 
weapons  of  the  trust  are  threats,  intimidation,  bribery, 
fraud,  wreck  and  pillage.  Take  one  well  authenticated 
instance  in  the  history  of  the  Oat  Meal  Trust  as  an  ex- 
ample. In  1887  this  Trust  decided  that  part  of  their  mills 
should  stand  idle.  They  were  accordingly  closed.  This 
resulted  in  the  discharge  of  a  large  number  of  laborers 
who  had  to  suffer  in  consequence.  The  mills  which  were 
continued  in  operation  would  produce  seven  million  bar- 
rels of  meal  during  the  year.  Shortly  after  shutting  down 
the  Trust  advanced  the  price  of  meal  one  dollar  per  barrel 
and  the  public  was  forced  to  stand  the  assessment.  The 
mills  were  more  profitable  when  idle  than  when  in  operar 
tion. 


TRUSTS.  39? 

The  Sugar  Trust  has  it  within  its  power  to  levy  a  tribute 
of  $30,000,000  upon  the  people  of  the  United  States  by 
simply  advancing  the  price  of  sugar  one  cent  per  pound 
for  one  year. 

If  popular  tumult  breaks  out  and  legislation  in  restraint 
of  these  depredations  is  threatened,  they  can  advance  prices, 
extort  campaign  expenses  and  corruption  funds  from  the 
people  and  force  the  disgruntled  multitude  to  furnish  the 
sinews  of  war  for  their  own  destruction.  They  not  only 
have  the  power  to  do  these  things,  but  it  is  their  known 
mode  of  warfare  and  they  actually  practice  it  from  year  to 
year. 

The  most  distressing  feature  of  this  war  of  the  Trusts  is 
the  fact  that  they  control  the  articles  which  the  plain 
people  consume  in  their  daily  life.  It  cuts  off  their  accum- 
ulations and  deprives  them  of  the  staff  upon  which  they 
fain  would  lean  in  their  old  age. 

THE   REMEDY. 

For  nearly  three  hundred  years  the  Anglo-Saxon  race 
has  been  trying  to  arrest  the  encroachments  of  monopoly 
and  yet  the  evil  has  flourished  and  gained  in  strength  from 
age  to  age.  The  courts  have  come  to  the  aid  of  enlightened 
sentiment,  pronounced  all  such  combinations  contrary  to 
public  policy,  illegal  and  their  contracts  void;  and  still  they 
have  continued  to  thrive.  Thus  far  repressive  and  prohib- 
itory legislation  have  proved  unavailing.  Experience  has 
shown  that  when  men,  for  the  sake  of  gain,  will  openl}^ 
violate  the  moral  law  and  infringe  upon  the  plain  rights  of 
their  neighbors,  they  will  not  be  restrained  by  ordinary 
prohibitory  measures.  It  is  the  application  of  force  to  the 
situation  and  force  nmst  be  met  with  force.  The  States 
should  pass  stringent  penal  statutes  which  will  visit  personal 
responsibility  upon  all  agents  and  representatives  of  the 
trust  who  aid  or  assist  in  the  transaction  of  its  business 


394  A    CALL  TO   ACTION. 

within  the  State.  The  General  Government,  through  its 
power  to  lay  and  collect  taxes,  should  place  an  excise 
or  internal  revenue  tax  of  from  25  to  40  per  cent  on  all 
manufacturing  plants,  goods,  wares  or  merchandise  of 
whatever  kind  and  wherever  found  when  owned  by 
or  controlled  in  the  interest  of  such  combines  or  associ- 
ations, and  this  tax  should  be  a  first  lien  upon  such  prop 
erty  until  the  tax  is  paid.  The  details  of  such  a  bill  would 
not  be  difficult  to  frame.  Such  a  law  would  destroy  the 
Trust  root  and  branch.  Whenever  the  American  people 
really  try  to  overthrow  these  institutions  they  will  be  able 
to  do  so  and  to  further  postpone  action  is  a  crime. 

WHAT   OF   THE   FUTURE? 

One  of  the  main  charges  against  Charles  the  First,  was 
that  he  had  fostered  and  created  monopolies.  BQs  head 
went  to  the  block.  Nearly  every  great  struggle  of  the 
English  race  has  been  caused  by  the  unjust  exactions  of 
tribute — against  the  extortions  of  greed.  Our  own  war 
for  Independence  was  a  war  against  taxes.  Our  late 
internal  struggle  was  for  the  freedom  of  labor  and  the 
right  of  the  laborer  to  possess  and  enjoy  his  own .  That 
struggle  is  still  on  and  it  is  now  thundering  at  our  gates  with 
renewed  energy.  It  will  not  down,  though  the  Trust  heap 
Ossa  upon  Pelion.  The  people  will  rise  and  overturn  the 
despoilers  though  they  shake  the  earth  by  the  displacement. 

These  vast  struggles  are  great  teachers  and  the  world  is 
learning  rapidly.  We  are  coming  to  know  that  great  com- 
binations reduce  the  cost  of  production  and  soon  the  world 
will  grasp  the  idea  that  the  people  can  combine  and  protect 
themselves.  In  this  combine,  in  this  co-operation  of  all, 
there  will  be  no  discrimination  and  the  bounties  of  Heaven 
will  be  open  alike  to  the  weak  and  the  powerful.  We 
welcome  the  conflict.  There  is  no  time  to  lose  nor  can  the 
battle  begin  too  soon. 


CHAPTKR    XV. 


NATIONAL  BANKS. 

The  fundamental  vice  which  underlies  the  National  bank- 
ing system  is  this:  It  is  the  surrender  of  one  of  the  highest 
duties  and  powers  of  the  Government  to  the  control  of 
private  speculators  to  be  used  for  personal  gain.  It  is  an 
attempt  to  harmonize  the  interests  of  private  adventure 
with  the  demands  of  the  whole  people  at  all  times  for  a 
stable  and  adequate  money  supply. 

The  experience  of  mankind,  and  particularly  of  this 
country,  exhibits  this  oft  repeated  folly  in  a  light  which 
shows  it  to  be  little  short  of  a  stupendous  crime.  It  is  safe 
to  say  that  there  never  was  a  bank  of  issue,  in  any  country, 
which  did  not  regulate  the  volume  of  its  circulating  notes, 
from  first  to  last,  in  the  interest  of  the  stockholders  as  con- 
tra-distinguished from  the  interests  of  the  pubHc.  General 
Jackson  reduced  the  whole  story  to  a  single  theorem  when 
he  declared  that  "the  banks  could  not  be  relied  upon  to 
keep  the  currency  uniform  in  amount."  Those  interested 
in  banks  of  issue  and  the  public  at  large  are  necessarily  at 
cross-purposes.  The  man  who  has  money  to  loan  prefers 
that  it  shall  be  scarce  in  the  market  and  the  demand  for  it 
great.  Those  who  are  engaged  in  productive  industry  de- 
sire just  the  reverse — that  it  shall  be  plentiful  and  the 
demand  light.  The  former  theory  makes  usury  the  domi- 
nant business  of  the  country,  the  latter  exalts  productive 
industry  to  the  controlling  position  in  the  State. 


396  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

•  All  civilized  nations  exist  by  cultivating  the  soil  and  by 
commercial  pursuits  which  result  therefrom.  We  draw  our 
sustenance  from  the  earth.  The  grain,  the  delicious  fruit, 
animal  food,  our  raiment  and  our  shelter — all  are  directly 
or  indirectly  derived  from  the  soil.  But  the  products  of 
the  earth  are  bulky,  cumbersome  and  hence  difficult  to 
exchange.  If  the  world  were  restricted  to  barter  our  crops 
would  decay  in  the  fields  and  rot  in  our  bins.  To  make 
the  product  of  the  earth  available  to  modern  society  some 
method  of  transferring — some  medium  of  exchanging  com- 
modities must  be  found.  The  State  does  not  claim  the 
power  to  designate  by  law  who  shall  engage  in  agriculture, 
who  in  horticulture,  who  in  this  calling  and  who  in  that. 
All  this  is  wisely  left  to  individual  choice.  But  it  is  appar- 
ent that  the  creation  of  the  medium  by  means  of  which  all 
commodities  are  to  be  exchanged  is  beyond  the  scope  of 
individual  enterprise.  To  confide  it  to  individual  pursuit 
is  to  introduce  chaos  instead  of  order,  conflict  instead  of 
concord. 

The  power  to  designate  our  circulating  medium  and  the 
duty  of  supplying  the  same  are  properly  lodged  in  trust 
with  the  law  making  body  which  represents  the  whole 
people.  Every  charter,  therefore,  held  by  a  bank  of  issue 
is  a  confession  under  seal  of  a  gross  betrayal  of  this  public- 
trust.  It  is  manifest  that  the  power  which  all  the  people 
and  the  very  construction  of  society  demand  shall  be  vsdth- 
held  from  individual  control  and  lodged  in  the  Govern- 
ment cannot  be  surrendered  by  our  law  makers  without  the 
grossest  betrayal  of  public  duty. 

Would  it  were  within  our  power  to  chain  the  attention 
of  the  reader  to  this  one  thought  and  to  render  it  impos- 
sible for  him  to  advance  or  to  lay  down  this  book,  until 
the  criminal  enormity  of  this  feature  of  our  financial  sys- 
tem is  completly  understood.     Realizing  fully  the  correl- 


NATIONAL   BANKS.  397 

ative  duties  of  Government  to  make  the  money  for  the 
people  and  to  prescribe  the  channels  through  which  it  shall 
pass  into  circulation,  we  would  arouse  him  to  the  fact  that 
his  Government,  with  this  sacred  work  in  charge,  actually 
passes  the  public  credit  to  associated  speculators  at  one 
per  cent  per  annum  on  the  dollar,  and  then  authorizes 
these  favorites  to  dole  it  out  to  the  people  at  six,  eight,  ten 
and  twelve  times  as  much  interest  as  they  pay  to  the 
Government  for  its  use.  That  this  is  the  exclusive  and 
only  channel  through  which  this  monetized  public  credit 
can  reach  the  people,  and  that  no  citizen  can  get  a  dollar 
of  it  except  upon  the  terms  prescribed  by  these  commis- 
sioned usurers  who  are  authorized  to  extort  toll  from  the 
people  that  they  may  place  it  in  their  own  private  purses  ! 
What  right  have  these  men  to  sell  the  public  credit?  It 
does  not  belong  to  them.  Whence  did  Congress  derive 
the  power  to  sell  it  to  anybody  ?  Unfortunately  the  people 
have  not  thus  far  fully  realized  the  great  wrong  under 
which  they  are  suffering.  They  all  feel  the  effect,  but  the 
majority  have  been  blind  to  its  cause.  It  seems  beyond 
the  pale  of  belief  that  our  Government,  in  searching  for  a 
proper  channel  through  which  to  put  out  the  money,  would 
deliberately  pass  by  the  great  army  of  wealth  producers, 
the  tax-payers  and  those  who  must  be  relied  upon  to 
defend  the  flag,  and  select  an  association  of  speculators 
and  throw  the  money  into  their  laps  and  clothe  them  with 
the  power  to  tax  the  people  for  its  use.  Had  we  not  read 
the  law  and  witnessed  its  operations  for  a  full  quarter  of  a 
century  it  would  indeed  be  difficult  for  us  to  credit  the 
statement.  And  yet  this  is  exactly  what  the  Government 
has  been  doing  all  these  years  and  is  doing  to-day. 

The  first  act  authorizing  our  present  system  of  National 
banks  was  parsed  February  25,  1863 — just  one  year  after 
the  act  was  passed  authorizing  the  issue  of  Legal  tender 


398  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

notes.  But  no  banks  went  into  operation  under  this  act. 
State  bank  manao^ers  were  at  first  hostile  to  the  scheme,  and 
besides  they  were  then  engaged  in  their  gold  speculations 
and  in  the  work  of  depreciating  Government  notes  which 
would  prepare  them  to  go  into  the  National  banking  busi- 
ness full  handed  later  on. 

Finally  on  June  3,  1864,  an  act  was  passed  (13  Statutes 
page  99)  repealing  the  act  of  1863,  and  authorizing  the 
State  banks  to  be  converted  into  National  banks  and  mak- 
ing various  other  changes  satisfactory  to  the  moneyed 
interests. 

Thus  far  no  National  bank  notes  had  been  issued.  By 
the  report  of  Hugh  McCulloch,  Comptroller  of  the  Cur- 
rency, of  December  25,  1864,  we  are  informed  that  at  that 
date  banks  had  been  organized  with  an  aggregate  circula- 
tion of  only  $65,864,650,  "a  considerable  portion  of  which 
had  not  been  put  into  circulation." 

"We  mention  this  in  order  to  correct  an  error  common 
among  the  people  which  induces  many  to  believe  that  the 
National  banks  came  to  the  rescue  of  the  Government  in 
time  of  public  peril.  It  would  seem  from  the  statement  of 
the  Comptroller  that  their  arrival  on  the  field  of  danger 
was  a  little  tardy.  Not  a  dollar  of  their  notes  was  ever 
paid  out  to  the  army,  nor  did  they  fairly  begin  to  issue 
them  until  the  war  was  practically  at  an  end.  It  is  clear 
that  the  banks  were  not  in  the  rescuing  business  during 
the  war,  as  has  been  abundantly  shown  in  our  chapter  on 
*' Finance  in  War  and  Peace." 

The  circulation  of  the  National  banks  reached  its  maxi- 
mum in  18T5,  when  it  was  $354,408,008.  Since  this  date, 
taking  the  whole  period  together,  there  has  been  a  steady 
decline  in  the  sum  total  of  their  circulating  notes  until  to- 
day, as  we  are  informed  by  an  oflScial  statement  received 
from  the  present  Comptroller,  dated  July  2,  1891,  it  has 


NATIONAL   BANKS.  399 

fallen,  after  deductino^  lawful  money  on  deposit  to  retire 
circulation,  to  $126,974,021.  This  decline  of  8227,433,987, 
during  the  past  sixteen  years,  in  the  volume  of  circulating 
medium  has  taken  place  notwithstanding  the  constant 
increase  in  the  total  number  of  National  banks,  and  in 
spite  of  the  constant  expansion  of  population  and  trade  in 
every  part  of  the  country.  If  these  had  been  Government 
Legal  tenders  instead  of  JSTational  bank  notes  they  would 
have  remained  in  circulation  all  this  period  to  bless  the 
country.  The  banks  have  largely  increased  in  number, 
while  their  circulating  notes  have  greatly  diminished.  It 
will  doubtless  be  urged  that  the  decline  in  circulation  has 
resulted  from  the  payment  by  the  Government  of  the 
bonds  upon  which  it  was  based .  Grant  this  to  be  true.  It 
exhibits  in  the  strongest  possible  light  the  folly  of  the 
system.  It  is  a  confession  that  the  house  was  built  upon 
the  sand  when  the  proprietor  and  the  workmen  knew  that 
the  floods  were  coming.  Sound  financial  poKcy  demands 
that  when  a  dollar  is  once  put  in  circulation  it  should 
never  be  withdrawn.  If  destroyed  it  should  be  replaced 
by  another.  As  population  multiplies,  an  increase  of 
money  is  as  essential  as  an  increase  of  food  and  raiment. 

But  in  truth  the  National  bank  notes  were  not  retired 
because  the  bonds  were  called  in  for  payment.  In  every 
instance  it  has  been  voluntary  and  governed  solely  by  self 
interest.  It  was  because  more  money  could  be  made  and 
more  power  secured  by  retiring  the  circulation  than  by 
keeping  it  afloat.  The  welfare  of  the  people  did  not  enter 
into  the  circulation.  A  vicious  law  had  placed  a  premium 
on  bonds  which  was  greater  than  the  enormous  profits  to 
be  derived  from  the  use  of  currency  obtained  at  the  cheap 
rate  of  only  one  per  cent  per  annum.  When  that  tempta- 
tion occurred  the  banks  did  not  hesitate  to  retire  their  cur- 
rency and  to  strike  down  at  a  single  blow  every  struggling 


400  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

industry  in  the  land.  This  was  a  ghastly  exposure  of  the 
deadly  faults  underlying  the  system,  but  they  were  not 
embarrassed  on  that  account.  When  the  forbidden  fruit 
was  presented  they  availed  themselves  of  it  regardless  of 
consequences.  Nothing  could  so  completely  establish  the 
fact  that  the  American  people  are  within  the  hands  and 
completely  at  the  mercy  of  a  lot  of  grinding  speculators,  as 
the  enormous  decrease  in  the  volume  of  bank  notes  which 
the  above  figures  exhibit. 

But  the  most  astounding  fact  in  connection  with  the 
National  banking  system  was  the  provision  of  the  law 
(Section  4,  Act  June  20,  1874,)  which  expressly  permitted 
the  banks  to  retire  their  circulating  notes  "in  whole  or  in 
part,"  by  depositing  with  the  Treasury  an  equal  amount  of 
lawful  money  for  their  redemption. 

Another  provision  permits  them  to  go  into  liquidation  at 
will.  The  first  provision  has  been  amended  so  as  to  restrict 
the  amount  of  notes  retired  to  not  more  than  $3,000,000 
per  month  in  the  aggregate,  but  the  power  of  the  banks, 
one  or  all,  to  go  into  liquidation  and  thus  retire  all  their 
notes,  still  exists.  These  provisions  authorizing  the  banks 
to  contract  the  currency  at  will,  are  solemnly  conferred  by 
act  of  Congress  without  any  provision  whatever  for  the  issue 
of  other  money  to  take  the  place  of  notes  so  retired.  A 
corresponding  power  is  also  conferred  upon  the  banks  to 
issue  notes  whenever  they  desire  to  do  so  without  regard  to 
limit.  (Sec.  3,  act  January  14,  1875).  They  have  a  carte 
blanch  to  do  as  they  please,  and  to  increase  or  diminish  the 
supply  at  will.  If  the  Government  had  ofiered  a  reward 
for  the  most  skillfully  constructed  scheme  by  which  pro- 
ductive industry  could  be  placed  permanently  and  securely 
under  tribute  to  speculators  and  idlers,  the  authors  of  the 
National  banking  system  would  have  been  entitled,  without 
question,  to  a  reward  and  to  a  diploma  for  their  ingenuity. 


NATIONAL   BANKS.  401 

IMPORTANCE   OF   SECURITY    AND    ST.ABILITT. 

The  Government  of  the  United  States  is  designed  to  be 
permanent.  Each  generation  is  expected  to  cherish  and 
defend  it  with  their  lives  and  fortunes.  Every  patriotic 
citizen  of  the  Great  Republic  fondly  hopes  that  the  Cent- 
uries, as  they  slowly  pass  by  in  their  majestic  march,  may 
shower  only  immortelles  upon  us,  and  that  the  security, 
prosperity  and  happiness  of  our  people  may  forever  avouch 
our  right  to  exist  among  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

The  most  important  security  which  the  Nation  can  have 
in  this  respect  is  a  permanent  and  adequate  financial  sys- 
tem. This  should  be  constructed  in  harmony  with  our 
theory  and  form  of  Government,  and  should  be  as  endur- 
ing as  the  flag  which  floats  over  us  and  as  secure  as  the 
Constitution  itself.  Our  financial  structure  should  rest 
upon  the  stability,  be  backed  by  the  authority,  and  run 
parallel  with  the  life  of  the  Nation.  Money  is  to  Society 
what  munitions  of  war  are  to  an  army.  An  army  poorly 
equipped  and  inadequately  supplied  is  an  object  of  pity 
and  derision.  But  what  shall  we  say  of  the  social  structure 
when  built  upon  a  feeble  and  vicious  financial  foundation 
— when  it  depends  for  its  strength  and  efficiency  upon  the 
speculative  interests  of  a  lot  of  adventurers?  Are  we  not 
justified  in  characterizing  it  as  an  abomination  ?  It  is  built 
to  explode.  The  deadly  train  is  laid  and  only  awaits  some 
sudden  concussion — some  accidental  spark — to  ignite  it  and 
hurl  everything  into  confusion  and  ruin.  Let  us  suppose 
that  there  was  some  power  which  could  deprive  an  army  of 
or.e  half  of  its  guns  just  as  they  were  going  into  battle,  or 
could  stealthily  withdraw  a  large  share  of  their  ammuni- 
tion without  the  knowledge  of  the  soldiers,  just  as  they 
were  to  engage  the  enemy.     Could  we  reasonably  look  for 

anything  but  death  and  defeat  under  saich  circumstances? 
26 


402  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

Such  a  foe  would  be  infinitely  more  dangerous  than  an 
armed  enemy,  and  such  a  state  of  affairs  would  be  justly 
regarded  as  the  chief  peril  of  war.  Is  it  not  equally  as 
fatal  for  the  Government  of  the  United  States  to  place  its 
people,  with  all  their  sacred  interests,  at  the  mercy  of  those 
who  seek  to  coin  money  out  of  every  vicissitude  of  life? 
Have  they  ever  hesitated  to  take  advantage  of  public  mis- 
fortunes ? 

The  system  is  not  only  fraught  with  the  possibility  of 
disaster,  but  its  actual  workings  are  positively  ruinous  to 
general  business  thrift  and  security.  The  homes  which 
would  have  been  saved,  the  fortunes  which  would  have  been 
made  and  the  bankruptcies  which  would  have  been  avoided 
during  the  past  sixteen  years,  had  the  two  hundred  and 
twenty-seven  million  of  National  bank  notes  been  kept  in 
circulation  instead  of  being  retired,  is  beyond  the  power  of 
the  human  mind  to  even  conjecture.  Those  who  have  wit- 
nessed this  outrage  and  have  been  conscious  of  its  perpe- 
tration, but  have  failed  to  openly  condemn  and  denounce 
it,  diVe  particeps  criminis  before  God  and  mankind  to  all  the 
crime,  wreckage  and  plunder  which  have  resulted  from  the 
system. 

FOREIGN  INFLUENCE. 

Soon  after  the  charter  of  1816  was  granted  to  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States,  foreign  capital  became  largely  in- 
terested in  its  stock.  This  quickly  involved  the  foreign 
stockholders  in  American  politics.  President  Jackson,  in 
his  message  to  Congress  in  1832  and  1833,  concerning  the 
Bank,  expressly  urged  the  fact  of  this  foreign  intermed- 
dling as  good  reason  for  withholding  the  renewal  of  the 
charter.  The  present  National  banks  are  subject  to  the 
same  criticisms  and  they  have  followed  in  the  footsteps  of 
the  old  bank.     The  comptroller  of  the  currency  in  his   re- 


X 


NATIONAL   BANKS.  403 

port,  December  6tli,  1880,  page  3,  asserts  that  persons  re- 
siding "in  twenty-five  countries  in  Europe,  Asia  and 
Africa,"  at  that  time  held  shares  in  our  National  banks. 
As  time  advances  the  tendency  is  for  this  character  of  in- 
fluence to  increase.  It  opens  up  an  avenue  through  which 
foreign  influence  and  intrigue  can  exert  their  baleful  pow- 
ers. No  rightminded  American  citizen  can  be  willing  for 
non-resident  alien  investors  to  have  a  voice  in  determining 
our  money  supply.  But  this  is  unavoidable  under  the  sys- 
tem which  we  are  now  discussing. 

NON-KESIDENT  INFLUENCE. 

The  special  advantages  offered  by  this  system  also 
induces  large  numbers  of  non-residents  to  become  stock- 
holders and  directors  of  banks  located  at  points  remote 
from  their  domiciles.  The  share-holders,  and  their  custom- 
ers are  strangers  to  each  other  and  have  no  common  bond 
of  sympathy.  Concerning  non-resident  influence,  the 
Comptroller,  in  his  report  for  1889,  pages  12  and  13,  says: 

"The  extent  to  which  this  is  true  is  not  fully  understood. 
For  example,  if  the  group  of  States  known  as  division  No. 
6  is  taken,  composed  of  Iowa,  Minnesota,  Missouri,  Kansas 
and  Nebraska,  it  will  be  found  that  the  capital  of  the  520 
associations  in  operation  there  on  June  30,  1889,  is  repre- 
sented by  647, 501  shares,  of  which  212, 305  are  held  by  non- 
residents, mostly  located  in  the  extreme  east. 

"In  division  No.  8,  comprising  the  States  and  Territories 
known  as  North  Dakota,  South  Dakota,  Idaho,  Montana, 
New  Mexico,  Utah,  Washington,  Wyoming  and  Arizona, 
it  will  be  found  that  more  than  one-third  of  the  total  num- 
ber of  shares  of  National  banks  are  held  by  non-residents; 
residents,  82,196  shares;  non-residents,  47,654  shares." 

One-third  of  the  shares  of  the  Minnesota  banks  are  held 
by  non-residents.  Two-thirds  of  the  shares  held  in  Kansas 
banks,  half  of  the  shares  of  the  Dakota  banks,  nearly  half 
of  the  shares  in  the  Washington  banks  and  more  than  half 


404  A    CALL   TO   ACTION. 

in  the  Wyoming  banks,  are  held  by  the  same  class  of 

investors. 

t 

A    PROFITABLE    BUSINESS. 

The  National  banking  system  has  been  in  operation 
twenty-eight  years  with  an  average  circulation  per  year  for 
the  whole  period  of  about  $250,000,000.  This  would  re- 
quire on  the  average,  $275,000,000  bonds  upon  which  to 
base  circulation.  If  we  average  the  interest  on  the  bonds 
during  the  whole  period  at  five  per  cent,  which  is  fair,  it 
•would  amount  to  $12,500,000  per  annum,  and  for  twenty- 
'seven  years  it  reaches  the  enormous  sum  of  $337,500,000. 
'This  interest  was  all  paid  in  gold.  From  1864  to  1879 — 
fifteen  years,  gold  bore  an  average  premium  of  twenty-nine 
per  cent  as  shown  by  the  Treasury  tables.  The  premium 
on  this  gold  interest  for  one  year  would  be  $3,525,000, 
and  for  the  fifteen  years  during  which  the  average  premium 
existed,  it  would  be  $52,875,000.  Add  this  to  the  $337,- 
600,000  and  we  have  $390,375,000  realized  in  interest  and 
premium  on  interest  paid  in  gold. 

PKOFIT   ON   BONDS. 

The  bonds  were  purchased  with  greenbacks  at  their  face 
value  which  cost  in  gold  on  the  average,  not  to  exceed 
fifty  cents  on  the  dollar,  giving  another  net  profit  of  $137,- 
600,000.  Add  this  to  the  $390,375,000  and  we  have  $527,- 
875,000  in  return  for  an  original  outlay  of  only  $137,500,000 
in  gold. 

PROFIT  MADE  UPON  THEIR  NOTES. 

The  National  banking  law  authorizes  the  banks  to  loan 
their  notes  at  the  lawful  rate  of  interest  in  tlie  State  or  Ter- 
ritory where  the  bank  is  located,  and  to  take  the  interest  in 
advance.  The  rate  in  the  States  varies  between  6  and  10 
per  cent.     In  most  of  the  Territories  there  was  no  limit  for 


NATIONAL   BANKS.  405 

man}'  years.  The  average  will  reach  8  per  cent.  This  rate 
upon  $250,000,000  average  circulation  per  annum  will  give 
$20,000,000,  and  for  twenty-eight  years  a  grand  aggregate 
of  $560,000,000.  Add  this  sum  to  the  $527,875,000  and 
we  have  a  return  of  $1,087,875,000  on  the  original  invest- 
ment of  $137,500,000  in  gold. 

PROFITS   ON   INDIVIDUAL   DEPOSITS. 

From  the  very  organization  of  the  system  deposits  in  Na- 
tional banks  have  always  been  large.  Let  us  average  the 
sum  at  only  $800,000,000  per  annum  for  the  period  of 
twenty-eight  years,  and  we  will  reckon  the  rate  on  loans  at 
8  per  cent,  simple  interest.  This  would  give  us  $1,792,- 
000,000  which,  when  added  to  the  $1,067,875,000,  gives  us 
the  vast  sum  of  $2,859,875,000 — a  profit  equal  to  the  entire 
National  debt  at  the  close  of  the  war,  in  return  for  an  origi- 
nal investment  as  before  stated,  of  only  $137,500,000  in 
gold.  It  should  be  kept  in  mind  that  we  have  in  the  above 
calculation  of  profits  simply  followed  the  average  of  1275,- 
000,000  of  bonds  deposited  to  secure  circulation,  the  circu- 
lating notes  obtained  thereon  and  the  profitable  privileges 
and  advantages  resulting  therefrom.  We  have  taken  no 
account  of  the  profits  on  the  large  amount  of  capital  stock 
not  represented  by  the  bonds  deposited  to  secure  circulation. 

INCIDENTAL   PROFITS. 

The  banks  have  had,  during  the  whole  period  of  their  ex- 
istence, a  large  amount  of  public  money  on  deposit  in 
addition  to  individual  deposits,  which  they  have  used  and 
to  some  extent,  are  still  permitted  to  use  as  current  funds.  It 
is  much  below  correct  figures  to  say  that  the  public  funds 
constantly  in  use  by  them  will  average  at  the  lowest  calcu- 
lation, $15,000,000  per  annum,  for  twenty-eight  years. 
Here  is  a  handsome  little  income  of  $1,200,000  calculated 


406 


A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 


at  eight  per  cent.  Then  the  premium  on  bonds  other  than 
those  held  to  secure  circulation,  which  resulted  from  a  cun- 
ning provision  of  the  law  which  deprived  the  Government 
of  the  power  to  pay  its  debts  whenever  it  might  have 
available  funds.  This  has  amounted  to  hundreds  of  mil- 
lions more. 

In  the  Forty- ninth  Congress  the  writer  had  the  honor  of 
calling  public  attention  to  the  abuse  of  depositing  public 
money  in  National  banks.  At  that  time  there  were  $52,000,- 
000  of  public  money  in  the  various  banks  throughout  the 
States.  The  names  of  the  banks  were  given  and  the 
amount  held  by  each,  and  the  whole  expose  was  printed 
in  the  Congressional  Record  at  the  time.  In  December, 
1878,  in  response  to  a  resolution  of  inquiry  adopted  by  the 
House  of  Representatives,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
was  forced  to  disclose  the  fact  that  he  had,  during  the  six 
months  immediately  preceding  the  month  of  December,  of 
that  year,  kept  on  deposit  in  the  First  National  Bank  of 
New  York,  an  average  of  $30,000,000  per  month  of  the 
public  funds,  and  that  during  one  month  he  had  on  deposit 
there  $45,000,000  of  funds  belonging  to  the  Treasury,  for 
the  use  of  which  the  bank  did  not  pay  to  the  Treasury  one 
single  penny.  The  capital  stock  of  this  bank  was  only 
$500,000.  This  was  done  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  a  sub- 
Treasury  of  the  United  States,  where  this  money  could  be 
safely  kept,  was  located  within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  bank. 
The  value  of  the  Government  deposits  to  that  bank  during 
the  period  mentioned,  estimating  the  interest  realized  at  six 
per  cent,  was  $765,000,  a  sum  larger  than  its  whole 
capital  stock  ! 

besides  all  this,  the  one  item  of  buying  and  selling  bills 
of  exchange  and  discounting  negotiable  paper  is  o:  itsell 
a  very  great  source  of  profit.  Again,  as  a  rule,  the  inter- 
est on  all  loans  is  collected  at  the  time  the  loan  is  made. 


•  NATIONAL   BANKS.  407 

This  compounds  the  interest  on  the  myriads  of  transac- 
tions running  through  the  whole  twenty-eight  years.  The 
gains  from  this  source  alone  are  enormous. 

It  is  absolutely  certain  that  the  accumulations  realized 
under  this  subdivision  of  "Incidental  Profit,"  will  more 
than  double  the  entire  current  expenses  of  carrying  on  the 
system,  including  all  taxes  paid  and  losses  s-jstained. 
Nothing  can  be  clearer  than  that  the  $2,859,875,000  above 
stated  falls  short  of  a  true  estimate  of  the  net  profits  of  the 
system  during  the  period  it  has  been  in  operation. 

But  the  question  as  to  whether  these  Associations  have 
or  have  not  amassed  fortunes  by  the  exercise  of  their  pre- 
rogatives is  insignificant  when  compared  with  other  con- 
siderations which  belong  to  the  controversy. 

Another  glaring  vice  inherent  in  the  system  is  the  fact 
that  the  power  of  the  Government  to  issue  National  bank 
notes  cannot  be  exercised  until  it  is  evoked  by  private  spec- 
ulators and  associated  usurers.  The  Government  is  merely 
their  instrument  and  obedient  servant,  having  no  will  of 
its  own.  The  power  lies  dormant  until  such  time  as  these 
highly  favored  members  of  the  community  may  find  pleas- 
ure in  arousing  it  to  activity.  They  determine  when  the 
power  shall  be  exercised  and  when  it  shall  cease.  It  is  as 
though  it  were  a  piece  of  machinery.  The  speculator 
throws  his  belt  over  the  wheel  and  it  runs.  When  it  is 
removed  it  ceases  to  revolve.  And  again  when  they  have 
accomplished  their  speculation  the  same  parties  who  call 
for  the  money  may  destroy  it  and  thus  place  it  beyond  the 
reach  of  others  who  desire  its  use. 

MASTERS   OF   THE   SITUATION. 

The  demand  among  the  people,  followed  by  the  struggle 
in  Congress,  for  the  remonetization  of  silver  was  based 
upon  the  universal  conviction  that  the  country  was  suffer- 
ing for  want  of  money.     Congress  responded  by  author- 


408  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

izing  the  coinage  into  standard  silver  dollars  of  not  less 
than  two  nor  more  than  four  million  dollars'  worth  of 
bullion  per  month.  It  was  expected  that  this  gradual 
addition  to  our  circulating  medium  would  stimulate  trade 
and  impart  a  healthy  impulse  to  business.  Confidence  was 
entertained  that  those  intrusted  with  the  execution  of  the 
law  would  act  in  good  faith  and  readily  comply  with  the 
law.  But  as  soon  as  the  law  was  enacted  the  New  York 
Clearing  House  Association,  composed  of  the  associated 
banks  of  that  city,  refused  to  receive  standard  silver  coins 
on  deposit  as  current  funds.  They  would  receive  them 
only  to  be  paid  back  in  kind.  The  Secretary  was  a  party 
to  this  conspiracy  and  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States 
became  a  member  of  the  New  York  Clearing  House  Asso- 
ciation, and  joined  in  nullifying  the  law . 

The  Secretary  reluctantly  obeyed  the  law  and  coined  the 
minimum  instead  of  the  maximum  amount.  Meantime  for 
every  three  millions  of  silver  dollars  coined,  the  banks 
retired  above  two  millions  of  their  circulating  notes.  Out- 
rageous jugglery  of  this  kind  has  been  in  constant  opera- 
tion year  after  year  and  is  still  in  full  force.  This  joint 
action  on  the  part  of  the  banks  and  Treasury  officials, 
together  with  the  policy  of  locking  up  vast  sums  in  the 
vaults  at  Washington,  have  sufficed  to  diminish  our  cur- 
rency in  the  face  of  an  expanding  business  and  increasing 
population. 

When  this  S3^stem  was  established  it  was  heralded  as  one 
which  would  give  to  the  expanding  energies  of  our  vigorous 
civilization  an  ample  and  increasing  volume  of  currency. 
Its  actual  operation  has  been  just  the  reverse.  The  exper- 
iment has  been  expensive  and  embarrassing  to  all  who  are 
not  connected  with  the  system.  But  it  is  gratifying  to  know 
that  its  power  is  waning  and  that  a  new  formulation,  based 
upon  more  humane  principals,  and  born  of  clearer  concep- 
tions of  popular  rights,  is  ready  to  take  its  place. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 


THE  TRANSPORTATION  PROBLEM. 

The  transportation  issue  is  one  of  the  important  conten- 
tions of  our  age.  It  is  a  business  question  of  the  highest 
importance,  but  its  relation  to  Government  is  vital  and  over 
shadowing.  We  can  of  course  only  treat  the  subject  sug- 
gestively in  this  brief  chapter,  but  we  hope  to  stimulate 
and  guide  the  reader  to  further  investigations. 

The  activities  of  modern  life  and  the  necessity  for  daily 
communication  between  widely  separated  communities  ren- 
der the  consideration  of  this  subject  of  supreme  importance 
to  the  American  people  at  this  juncture  in  our  history. 

The  controlling  victory  in  the  great  battle  between  the 
people  and  the  corporate  barons  of  the  period  was  won 
when  the  Courts,  both  State  and  National,  decided  that  our 
lines  of  railway  transportation  were  public  highways.  This 
mountain  pass  having  been  captured,  it  only  remains  for  the 
people  to  move  over  into  the  open  country  beyond. 

No  Government  can  safely  surrender  control  over  its 
highways,  and  if  it  has  attempted  to  do  so  the  concession 
is  void,  being  in  conflict  with  sound  public  policy  and  the 
safety  of  the  people.  In  such  instances  the  people  are  free 
to  disregard  the  surrender  and  to  resume  control  of  their 
highways  whenever  they  may  desire  to  do  so,  and  upon 
such  terms  as  they  in  justice  may  deem  proper  and  right. 

In  civilized  life  public  highways  are  indispensable.  There 
can  be  neither  safety,  convenience  nor  public  order  with- 


4:10  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

out  them.  And  inasmuch  as  the  duty  to  construct  and 
maintain  these  highways  devolves  upon  all  members  of  the 
community  alike,  it  follows  that  it  is  incumbent  upon  that 
power  which  represents  the  whole  people  to  discharge  this 
duty.  When  applied  to  ordinary  highways  this  has  always 
been  conceded.  But  highways  for  rapid  transit  between 
widely  separated  communities  and  between  cities  and 
states  are  essentially  the  same,  and  the  duty  to  construct, 
operate  and  control  them  rests  just  where  it  does  in  the 
case  of  ordinary  public  roads.  It  has  been  substantially 
so  held  by  the  courts  over  and  over  again .  It  is  not  pos- 
sible to  draw  any  line  of  distinction  between  them.  It  is 
but  just  beginning  to  dawn  upon  us  that  our  great  high- 
ways have  been  wrenched  from  our  control — that  they 
have  been  farmed  out  to  private  adventurers  and  specula- 
tors who  use  them  to  extort  unconscionable  tolls  from  the 
people  as  they  pass  to  and  fro. 

The  just  power  of  the  Nation  is  made  up  of  the  authority 
transferred  to  it  by  the  people.  It  can  rightfully  possess 
none  other.  This  power  can  not  be  surrendered  or  properly 
delegated  to  any  private  person  whomsoever.  It  is  inca- 
pable of  annihilation,  and  should  the  Government  be  dis- 
solved it  would  return  to  those  from  whom  it  was  derived. 

The  power  which  the  people  originally  possessed  to  reg- 
ulate commerce  among  the  States  for  themselves  was  by 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  solemnly  transferred  to 
Congress  and  at  once  became  a  matter  of  National  and 
universal  concern.  The  Congress  can  not  escape  the 
responsibility  if  it  would.  It  is  a  great  problem  underly- 
ing the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  the  people.  How  can 
it  be  solved  ?  In  the  opinion  of  the  writer,  private  greed 
and  the  public  welfare  can  not  be  reconciled.  As  long  as 
men  are  permitted  to  invest  their  private  fortunes  in  public 
high  ways  they  will  spurn  public  control.     Instead  of  study- 


THE   TKANSPORTATIOX   PROBLEM.  4:11 

ing  how  to  obey  the  law,  they  will  tax  their  ingenuity  to 
find  ways  to  violate  both  its  letter  and  its  spirit.  The  con- 
trolKng  thought  of  an  investor  in  railways  is  dividends. 
The  public  welfare  calls  for  the  highest  efficiency  at  the 
minimum  cost.  The  conflict  between  these  two  principles 
or  interests  is  malignant  and  erreconcilable,  and  it  is  rank 
folly  to  longer  attempt  to  disguise  the  real  situation.  Let 
us  glance  at  a  few  facts  which  exhibit  the  serious  character 
of  this  struggle  between  individual  greed  and  the  public 
welfare.  It  is  well  known  that  in  the  autumn  of  1890,  a 
haK  dozen  railroad  magnates,  headed  by  Gould,  formed  a 
conspiracy  to  wreck  certain  railways  with  the  view  of  secur- 
ing ultimate  control  over  them.  To  do  so  it  became  nec- 
essary to  corner  the  available  money  in  the  principle  banks 
of  New  York. 

This  threw  "the  street"  into  a  panic  and  soon  the  per- 
turbation extended  throughout  the  metropolis  and  the 
country  was  within  arm's-length  of  a  general  panic.  Stocks 
of  course  declined  and  the  object  of  the  ring  was  accom- 
plished. Nothing  but  the  timely  extension  of  aid  by  the 
Treasury  department  averted  general  disaster.  What  was 
this  but  a  declaration  of  war  on  the  part  of  these  conspir- 
ators against  the  great  body  of  the  people?  It  was  like 
the  descent  of  a  band  of  Italian  brigands  from  the  moun- 
tains for  plunder.  If  a  half-dozen  piratical  crafts  had 
sailed  into  New  York  harbor  on  that  beautiful  autumn  day, 
they  could  not  have  wrought  much  more  havoc  than  was 
inflicted  upon  the  business  interests  of  the  countr}'  by 
these  half-dozen  railroad  speculators  and  Wall  Street 
gamblers.  And  yet  these  are  the  men  who  are  constantly 
prating  about  the  security  of  property  and  the  inviolability 
of  vested  rights!  Transactions  similar  in  character  but  of 
less  magnitude  are  continually  occurring.  The  business 
situation  is  liable  to  be  convulsed  by  them  at  any  moment. 


412  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

Investments  in  railway  securities,  except  in  a  few  control 
ling  lines,  have  come,  on  this  account,  to  be  the  most 
hazardous  of  all  business  adventures.  It  is  a  matter  of 
common  occurence  for  whole  lines  to  be  practicall}'^  confis- 
cated and  swallowed  up  by  private  manipulators,  and  those 
who  have  invested  their  money  are  financially  stranded  for 
life.  In  their  delirium  of  greed  the  managers  of  our 
transportation  systems  disregard  both  private  right  and  the 
public  welfare.  To-day  they  will  combine  and  bankrupt 
their  weak  rivals,  and  by  the  expenditure  of  a  trifling  sum 
possess  themselves  of  properties  which  cost  the  outlay  of 
millions.  To-morrow  they  will  capitalize  their  booty  for 
five  times  the  cost,  issue  their  bonds  and  proceed  to  levy 
tariffs  upon  the  people  to  pay  dividends  upon  the  fraud. 
Take  for  example  the  Kansas  Midland.  It  cost  $10,200 
per  mile,  It  is  capitalized  at  $53,024  per  mile.  How  are 
the  plain  plodding  people  to  defend  themselves  against 
such  flagrant  injustice  ? 

Mr.  Sidney  Dillon,  President  of  the  Union  Pacific,  in 
the  North  American  Review^  for  April,  1891,  says  that  "a 
citizen,  simply  as  a  citizen,  commits  an  impertinence  when 
he  questions  the  right  of  a  corporation  to  capitalize  its 
properties  at  any  sum  whatever." 

This  gentleman  is  many  times  a  millionaire,  and  the 
road  over  which  he  presides  was  built  wholly  by  public 
funds  and  by  appropriations  of  the  public  domain.  The 
road  never  cost  Mr.  Dillon  nor  his  associates  a  single 
penny.  It  is  now  capitalized  at  $106, 000  per  mile  !  This 
Company  owes  the  Government  $50,000,000,  with  accru- 
ing interest  which  is  destined  to  accumulate  for  many 
years.  The  public  lien  exceeds  the  entire  cost  of  the 
road,  and  yet  this  Government,  which  Mr.  Dillon  defies, 
meekly  holds  a  second  mortgage  to  secure  its  claim.  Bills 
have  been    pending  in  Congress  for  six  or  eight  years  to 


THE  TRANSPOKTATION  PKOBLEM.  413 

reduce  the  interest  on  the  Government  lien  to  a  nominal 
sum  and  to  extend  and  renew  the  loan  for  three-quarters  of 
a  century.  It  is  publicly  reported  that  Gould  and  Dillon 
now  propose  to  put  a  mortojage  lien  of  $250,000,000  upon 
this  property  and  to  place  the  people  under  tribute  to  pay 
it.  It  is  pretty  clear  that  it  would  not  be  safe  for  the  pub- 
lic to  take  the  advice  of  either  Mr.  Dillon  or  Mr.  Gould  as 
to  the  best  method  of  dealing  with  the  transportation 
problem.  It  is  safer  to  follow  the  ancient  example  of  one 
of  the  Governors  of  Judea,  who,  in  dealing  with  another 
class  of  extortionists,  concluded  to  "  consult  with  himself." 

In  1885,  the  Superintendent  of  the  St.  Louis  &  Iron 
Mountain  road,  filed  a  sworn  statement  before  the  Arkan- 
sas State  Board  of  Assessments,  that  the  road  could  be 
duplicated  for  $11,000  per  mile.  It  is  capitalized  at  four 
times  that  sum. 

The  proper  method  of  ascertaining  the  actual  cost  of  a 
given  road  is  to  first  ascertain  the  amount  of  its  actual  paid 
up  capital  stock,  bonds  and  floating  debt  at  the  time  of 
completion  and  equipment.  Then  add  these  three  items 
together,  and,  if  they  are  truthfully  rendered,  you  have  the 
true  cost  of  construction  and  equipment.  Upon  the  aggre- 
gate of  these  three  items,  honestly  stated,  the  people  are 
willing  to  pay  a  reasonable  profit.  They  should  not  be 
expected  to  do  more.  The  fact  that  vastly  more  than  this 
has  been  almost  universally  exacted  for  more  than  a  score 
of  years,  by  the  great  majority  of  roads,  is  one  of  the 
underlying  causes  of  the  industrial  and  political  upheaval 
now  in  progress.  Let  us  apply  this  test  to  a  few  represent- 
ative roads.  We  will  take  two  in  the  West  and  one  system 
in' the  East,  to-wit:  The  Illinois  Central,  the  Chicago  and 
Northwestern,  and  the  New  York  Central  and  Hudson 
Kiver  railroad. 


414  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 


THE   ILLINOIS    CENTRAL. 


The  management  of  this  road  has  been  an  extraordinary 
success.  A  number  of  "distributions  of  stock,"  j^re*  rata, 
have  been  made  among  stockholders.  The  land  grant  of  this 
company  amounted  to  2,595,000  acres.  On  the  first  of  Jan- 
uary, 1873,  the  land  sales  and  advance  interest  had  yielded 
the  company  $24,824,333.33,  or  an  average  of  $35,211  per 
mile  on  their  entire  road  of  705  miles  operated  at  that  time. 
In  1858  dividends  were  paid  to  the  stockholders  in  script, 
which  was  soon  thereafter  converted  into  stock,  to  the 
amount  of  $1,772,270.  Again  in  1865  there  was  another 
distribution  of  stock  to  the  amount  of  $2,119,931.  In  the 
summer  of  1868  there  was  still  another  amounting  to 
SI,  881, 100.  These  ' '  distributions  of  stock  "  were  ' '  water  " 
and  amounted  in  the  aggregate  to  $5,773,301,  which,  when 
added  to  the  sales  of  land  to  that  date,  amounted  to  $30,- 
597,634,33,  or,  in  other  words,  to  $43,400.89  per  mile. 

The  total  cost  of  construction  of  the  entire  line  of  seven 
hundred  and  five  miles  as  reported  by  the  Company,  Janu- 
ary 1,  1873,  amounted  to  $34,061,196.56,  or  an  average  of 
$48,331.75  per  mile.  Tliis  leaves  but  $4,930.86^  as  the 
actual  sum  which  tjie  stockholders  of  this  road  had  ex- 
pended per  mile  over  and  above  receipts!  It  must  be 
remembered  that  this  estimate  does  not  include  the  value 
of  the  unsold  lands  which  the  company  had  on  hand 
January  1,  1873,  which  amount  to  344,368  acres  estimated 
at  that  time  to  be  worth  $5,165,520.  This  will  make  the 
aggregate  of  watered  stock  and  land  subsidy  exceed  the 
whole  cost  of  construction,  as  reported  by  the  Company 
itself,  by  the  sum  of  $1,801,957,77.  It  is  thus  seen,  by 
the  admission  of  the  accounting  oflicers  of  the  Company, 
that  the  United  States  Government  and  the  State  of  Illinois 
save  to  the  stockholders  of  the  Illinois  Central  railroad 


THE  TRANSPORTATION  PROBLEM.  415 

the  magnificent  line  of  road  seven  hundred  and  five  miles 
in  length,  and  a  bonus  of  nearly  two  millions  of  dollars  ! 
This  was  the  status  which  this  road  occupied  before  the 
public  eighteen  years  ago,  when  it  was  comparatively  in 
its  infancy.  Every  year  from  that  time  until  the  present, 
the  people  of  Illinois  and  the  whole  northwest  have  been 
paying  extortionate  rates  for  transportation  over  this  line 
to  enable  the  Company  to  pay  dividends  upon  this  uncon- 
scionable investment. 

THE   CHICAGO    AND   NORTHWESTERN. 

The  Chicago  and  Northwestern  Railroad  Company  was  the 
recipient  of  immense  land  grants  from  the  General  Govern- 
ment. JSTo  limitations  or  restrictions  were  imposed  by  Con- 
gress upon  the  disposition  of  these  lands.  The  grants  to 
this  road  were  as  follows: 

To  the  Iowa  Division 1,422,109  acres. 

To  the  Winona  and  St.  Peters  Company 1,400,000      " 

To  the  Peninsula  Railroad 346,880      " 

Total 3,168,989      " 

These  lands  were  all  diverted  from  the  ownership  and 
control  of  the  Company.  The  Companies  named  in  the 
act  of  Congress  granting  the  lands  leased  their  roads  to  the 
Northwestern  in  perpetuity,  making  no  mention  of  the  land 
grants  and  at  an  annual  rental  in  excess  of  reasonable  in- 
terest upon  the  money  actually  invested.  The  whole  trans- 
action smacks  strongly  of  private  manipulation,  collusion 
and  peculation  on  the  part  of  all  parties  concerned  in  the 
transaction. 

There  have  been  a  number  of  stock  waterings  connected 
with  this  road  also.  At  the  time  of  the  consolidation  with 
the  Galena  and  Chicago  road  the  stockholders  of  the  latter 
road  were  allowed  86,030,500  in  shares  to  "equalize"  values. 
In  1868,  a  script  dividend  amounting  to  $1,810,110  was 


416  A   CALL-TO-ACTION. 

divided  among  the  stockholders,  making  a  grand  product 
of  "water"  up  to  that  date  of  $8,840,810.  On  July  1,  1873, 
according  to  the  Company's  report  to  the  Illinois  Commis- 
sioners, the  total  stock  and  bonds  of  the  Company  amounted 
to  $61,597,573.82.  In  1872,  the  Company  issued  a  con- 
solidated mortgage  upon  its  whole  line  and  properties  to 
secure  bonds  to  the  amount  of  $48,000,000.  $35,349,000 
were  used  to  take  up  bonds  then  outstanding  against  the 
Company,  but  no  one  can  tell  what  became  of  the  remain- 
ing $12,651,000.  This  one  transaction  increased  the  liabil- 
ities of  the  Chicago  and  Northwestern  Railroad  Company 
to  the  enormous  sum  of  $84,477,073.82  and  yet  no  mention 
was  made  of  this  stupendous  transaction  in  the  report  to  the 
Bailroad  and  Warehouse  Commissioners,  The  action  of 
the  Company  since  the  year  1872,  has  been  in  line  with  the 
transactions  here  recorded.  Within  a  few  years  past  this 
whole  indebtedness  was  funded  into  new  bonds  which  lap 
far  over  upon  the  twentieth  Century. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  action  of  the  Company  in 
1873,  and  near  that  time,  in  order  to  give  the  reader  a  clear 
conception  of  the  enormous  tax  that  has  been  imposed  upon 
the  industries  and  people  of  this  country  by  this  one  Com- 
pany during  the  past  twenty  years,  and  to  give  him  an  idea 
of  what  may  be  looked  for  during  the  years  to  come  if  the 
relation  which  now  exists  between  the  Government  and 
those  who  operate  its  public  highways  is  not  speedily 
changed. 

NEW  TOKK  CENTKAL   AND    HUDSON  EIVER  RAILROAD 

In  the  report  of  the  Committee  on  Railroad  Transporta- 
tion made  by  experts  selected  by  the  American  Cheap 
Transportation  Association,  the  following  facts  were 
brought  out  concerning  the  management  of  the  New  York 
Central  and  Hudson  River  Railroad.     In  1853  ten  separate 


THE  TRANSPORTATION  PROBLEM.  417 

corporations  owning  the  route  between  tlie  Hudson  River 
and  the  hikes  were  consolidated.  The  committee  makes 
the  following  statement: 

*'The  combined  amount  of  share  capital  and  convertible 
bonds  of  these  separate  organizations  was  then  $23,235,000, 
but  a  considerable  portion  of  the  share  capital  had  not 
been  paid  in.  The  equalizing  process  of  the  consolidation 
was  that  the  Schenectady  and  Troy  Company — that  being 
the  least  productive  of  all — should  come  in  at  par,  while 
the  holders  of  stock  or  convertible  bonds  of  other  roads 
received  a  premium  in  Consolidated  6  per  cent  debt  certifi- 
cates ranging  from  17  to  55  per  cent,  making  an  issue  ot 
these  certificates,  amounting  to  18,894,500,  or  over  30  per 
cent  on  the  true  share  capital  of  the  company.  From  this 
time  down  to  1867  there  had  been  no  material  change  in 
the  total  stock  and  debt  of  the  New  York  Central  Company 
other  than  what  could  be  nearly  accounted  for  by  actual 
value  received,  and  its  capital  account  was  then  repre- 
sented by  $28,537,000  of  stock  and  $12,069,820  of  bonds,  a 
total  (including  the  'water,'  of  1853)  of  $10,606,820.  The 
Hudson  River  Railroad  Compan}',  at  the  same  time,  had 
a  share  capital  of  $7,000,000  and  a  bonded  debt  of  $7,227,- 
000;  total,  $14,227,000;  making  these  two  companies 
which  in  1860  were  consolidated,  stand  in  1867,  as  follows: 
Stock,  $35,537,000,  and  bonds,  $19,296,820,  or  a  total  cap- 
ital account  of  $54,833,820. 

"During  1867  the  Hudson  River  Compauy  presented 
its  stockholders  with  $3,500,000  stock,  or  a  dividend  of  fifty 
per  cent;  and  again,  at  the  time  of  consolidation,  another 
one  of  eighty-five  per  cent  on  the  then  outstanding  stock  of 
$16,000,000,"  making  an  issue  of  $13,625,000.  The  New 
York  Central  Company  had,  in  1868,  presented  its  stock- 
holders with  $23,036,000  or  eighty  per  cent,  followed  by  one 
of  twenty-seven  per  cent,  $7,775,000,  at  the  time  of  consol- 
idation. Thus  in  the  space  of  two  years  the  New  York 
Central  &  Hudson  River  Railroad  Company  added  to  its 
capital  the  sum  of  $47,836,000  created  out  of  nothing  but 
the  will  of  its  directors  and  the  mixture  of  paper  and 
printers'  ink." 
27 


418  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

The  Committee  also  state  that — 

"The  entire  railroad  system  of  the  United  States  is 
tainted  with  the  same  practice,  and  it  is  estimated  that 
about  one-half  of  the  stock  of  the  entire  body  of  railways 
in  this  country  has  been  thus  manufactured.  *  *  ♦ 
The  Palace  and  Sleeping-Car  and  Express  Companies  are 
also  excrescences  upon  the  railroad  system  of  the  country; 
and  from  the  fact  that  they  now  own  from  ten  to  twenty 
million  dollars  worth  of  cars,  bought  mostly  from  profits, 
they  should  be  bought  out  by  the  railroad  companies,  so 
that  the  profits  would  go  to  swell  their  general  revenues." 

Similar  wrongs,  scarcely  less  glaring  and  outrageous, 
were  also  mentioned  in  the  report  but  the  limits  of  this 
chapter  preclude  their  mention. 

Other  flagrant  abuses,  such  as  discriminating  between 
cities,  communities  and  individuals,  transporting  freight  for 
one  for  less  than  is  right  and  visiting  over-charges  upon  less 
favored  localities,  thus  compelling  the  latter  to  make  up 
for  losses  incurred,  through  favoritism  to  the  former,  are  also 
of  daily  occurrence.  Indeed,  it  would  require  a  score  of 
volumes  to  contain  even  an  outline  of  the  abuses  which  have 
been  inflicted  upon  the  people  of  the  United  States  during 
the  past  quarter  of  a  century  by  those  who  control  our  inter- 
state highways.  As  we  have  shown  in  other  portions  of 
this  work,  the  Dressed  Beef  Trust,  tlie  Anthracite  Pool, 
the  Soft  Coal  Combine,  and  almost  every  other  variety  and 
style  of  combination  now  despoiling  the  people,  derive 
their  vitality  from  unlawful  association  with  transportation 
monopolies. 

THERE    IS    BUT   ONE    REMEDY. 

The  Government  must  resume  control  of  these  highways 
and  operate  them  in  the  interest  of  the  people  at  large. 
This  it  can  do  by  building  lines  of  its  own  or  by  taking 
those  now  in  operation,  paying  a  reasonable  compensation 


"  THE  TRANSPOKTATION  PROBLEM.  419 

therefor.  It  is  idle  to  talk  of  any  other  remedy.  "We  have 
experimented  through  the  lifetime  of  a  whole  generation 
and  have  demonstrated  that  avarice  is  an  untrustworthy 
public  servant,  and  that  greed  cannot  be  regulated  or  made 
to  work  in  harmony  with  the  public  welfare.  Like  the 
carnal  mind,  it  is  enmity  against  tJie  Laws  of  God  and  man 
and  is  not  subject  to  the  will  of  either,  neither  indeed 
can  be. 

After  carefully  considering  the  objections  to  this  policy 
we  are  convinced  that  they  are  wholly  untenable  and  un- 
sound. Those  most  seriously  urged  relate  to  the  expense 
involved  in  the  purchase  of  the  various  plants  and  to  the 
dangerous  political  consequences  apprehended  from  the  ex- 
ercise of  power  so  vast. 

In  answer  to  the  first  objection,  it  is  suflicient  to  state 
that  the  burdens  of  the  whole  railway  system  as  at  present 
operated — value,  debt,  "water"  and  abuses  now  rest  upon 
the  people.  The  whole  structure  would  be  worthless  but 
for  their  daily  contributions.  The  burden  could  not  be 
greater  if  every  line  in  America  belonged  to  the  Govern- 
ment to-day,  and  we  were  in  debt  for  every  cent  of  their 
value,  fictitious  and  real,  even  if  the  tariffs  and  abuses 
were  to  remain  just  as  they  are  at  present. 

But  every  considerate  mind  knows  that  most,  if  not  all, 
of  the  abuses  which  now  vex  and  impoverish  industry  and 
the  public  in  general,  would  disappear  if  the  vice  of  avarice 
were  excluded  from  the  control  of  tliis  great  limb  of  our 
commerce. 

In  every  instance  where  the  Federal  Courts  have  taken 
charge  of  these  lines  of  traffic  and  placed  them  under  the 
supervision  of  Receivers  who  are  responsible  for  their  con- 
duct, the  public  service  has  been  greatl}'  improved.  In 
this  manner  the  whole  question  has  been  lifted  in  our  own 
country  from  the  domain  of  experiment  and  demonstrated 


420  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

in  scores  of  instances  to  be  the  most  practicable  thing  in 
the  world. 

But  the  second  objection  is  even  weaker  than  the  first. 
The  railroads  are  now  in  politics  and  corruptly  so.  Gov- 
ernment ownership  will  eliminate  their  corrupting  influence 
and  take  away  the  motive  for  its  exercise.  The  selection 
of  employes,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  can,  and 
should  be  placed  under  the  supervision  of  a  strictly  non- 
partisan board,  which  will  render  political  appointments 
impossible  and  free  the  service  from  all  party  considera- 
tions whatsoever.  In  this  manner  the  whole  industry  can  be 
exalted  to  a  plane  of  fraternity  and  efficiency.  We  shall 
not  attempt  to  discuss  or  to  set  forth  in  this  book  the  great 
variety  of  details  which  will  have  to  be  considered  when 
the  practical  legislator  shall  come  to  frame  the  law. 

Various  countries  in  the  old  world  have  tried  the  experi- 
ment of  Government  ownership  and  have  found  its  opera- 
tions in  every  respect  satisfactory. 

Austro-Hungary  has  afforded  the  world  a  notable  ex- 
ample of  the  benefits  resulting  from  the  plan  proposed. 
They  have  but  recently  adopted  the  system  of  zone 
tariffs,  and  we  have  examined  the  account  of  its  operation 
given  in  the  report  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commis- 
sion of  the  United  States  for  1890.  The  general  object  of 
the  Government  in  introducing  the  system  was  tlie  encour- 
agement of  long  distance  travel  between  the  Capital  and 
the  provinces,  and  a  modification  to  the  greatest  practical 
extent  of  the  element  of  distance  in  passenger  traffic,  in 
favor  of  all  ranks  and  classes  of  the  population;  the  theory 
being,  that  the  increased  volume  of  travel  would  fully  com- 
pensate for  the  lower  individual  charge  ;  the  eti'ect  in  uni- 
fying the  interest  of  all  sections  and  promoting  the  welfare 
of  the  Capita,  city,  being  also  an  important  incentive  to  the 
{change.      Each   railway  is  divided     into   sections     called 


THET  TKANSPOKTATION   PROBLEM.  421 

zones,  radiating  from  a  common  center — Buda  Pesth.  The 
first  zone  is  shortest,  extending  a  distanee  of  15.5  miles; 
the  second  and  each  succeeding  zone  up  to  the  twelfth  is 
9.6  miles  longer  than  the  zone  immediately  preceding  it, 
all  distances  exceeding  one  hundred  and  forty  miles  from 
the  starting  point  are  included  in  a  single  zone.  Passenger 
rates  are  fixed,  not  per  mile  or  per  kilometer,  but  at  so 
much  per  zone;  the  charge  for  every  fraction  of  a  zone 
being  the  same  as  for  a  full  zone.  As  each  zone  constantly 
increases  in  length  over  that  immediately  preceding  it,  the 
system  is  evidently  a  constantly  diminishing  rate  per  mile 
in  proportion  to  distance  traveled.  The  report  gives  ex- 
tended tables  of  rates  much  like  rate  sheets  which  are  now 
by  law  compelled  to  be  posted  in  our  stations.  We  have 
space  but  for  a  few  instances  from  these  tables  which  will 
afford  striking  illustrations  of  the  superiority  of  the  Hun- 
garian system  over  our  monopolistic  one. 

Six  classes  of  rates  are  given  in  the  table  of  which  we 
give  but  two,  the  highest  and  lowest:  From  station  (A)  to 
points  within  the  zone,  16  to  25  miles,  highest  rate  .40  low* 
est  .20;  to  points  within  the  fifth  zone  53  to  62  miles,  high- 
est rate  $1.M,  lowest  .60;  zone  tenth,  100  to  108  miles, 
highest  $2.64,  lowest  $1.10;  zone  thirteenth,  140  miles  and 
beyond,  highest,  $3.48,  lowest  $1.60:  But  the  most  marked 
features  of  this  system  are  shown  in  distances  above  140 
miles .  From  Buda  Pesth  to  Kolozsvar,  247  miles,  highest, 
$3.84,  lowest  81.60;  from  Buda  Pesth  to  Brasso,  452  miles 
highest  $3.84  lowest,  $1.60. 

These  rates  are  marked  reduction  from  the  former  ones 
and  have  resulted  (as  the  lowering  of  rates  in  Iowa)  in 
largely  increased  receipts.  The  number  of  passengers  car- 
ried in  1888  was  5,587,700,  in  1889  (during  which  year  the 
zone  tariff  was  adopted)  9,097,700,  an  increase  of  3,509,- 
500 .    The  total  receipts  from  passengers  and  baggage  in 


422  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

1888  were  $3,674,280,  in  1889,  $4,126,840,  increase  $432, 
560.  In  Austria  the  system  is  much  the  same  as  that  ol 
Hungary  but  has  only  been  in  operation  since  June  16, 
1890,  but  already  as  appears  from  a  communication  from 
the  Austrian  minister  of  Commerce,  "the  results  of  the  new 
system  are  satisfactory  both  as  concerns  the  increase  in  the 
number  of  passengers  and  receipts.  On  some  lines  the  in- 
crease in  the  number  of  passengers  was  as  much  as  176  per 
cent.  The  increase  in  the  receipts  of  passengers  and  bag- 
gage was  calculated  for  July  at  24,000  florins,  and  for 
August  at  45,000  florins. 

Prof.  Ely,  the  well  known  professor  of  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  spent  the  summer  in  Germany,  and  at  a  recent 
meeting  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  Historical  Society,  read  a 
paper  on  the  "Railways  and  Social  Democracy  in  Ger- 
many," in  which  he  pays  the  following  tribute  to  govern- 
ment railways  as  operated  in  that  empire: 

"I  was  very  much  impressed  during  my  stay  in  Germanj'' 
this  summer  by  the  superior  service  of  the  state  controlled 
railways  of  that  country  as  compared  with  the  careless 
management  of  our  own  lines.  There  was  scarcely  an 
accident  in  Prussia  during  the  whole  summer,  while  in  this 
country  nearly  five  times  as  many  passengers  are  injured 
or  killed  outright.  The  American  railways  have  not  enough 
employes  to  secure  safety  and  attention.  England  has  four 
times  as  many  men  and  Germany  even  more. 

"  We  are  fully  thirty  years  behind  Germany  in  safety  for 
passengers.  There  are  no  unguarded  crossings  allowed  to 
menace  the  public.  Even  at  the  stations  there  is  no  cross- 
ing the  tracks  to  reach  out  going  trains,  as  is  the  case  in 
our  own  union  stations.  To  get  on  the  other  side  in  Ger- 
many you  must  descend  a  flight  of  steps  and  pass  through 
a  tunnel  under  the  track.  The  stations  themselves  are 
models  of  beautiful  architecture  •  Th-a  new  one  in  Frank- 
fort cost  $4,000,000.  When  the  government  intends  to 
erect  a  new  station  it  offers  a  prize  to  architects  for  orna- 
mental desiorns.     There  is  a  maximum  of  comfort  received 


THE  TKANSPOKTATION  PROBLEM.  423 

in  railway  travel,  as  the  stations  are  all  union  stations, 
which  is  possible  since  the  government  controls  all  the 
lines. 

"Since  my  visit  ten  years  ago,  many  improvements  in 
speed  have  been  made,  fifty  miles  an  hour  being  the 
scheduled  time  for  many  trains.  The  express  from  Berlin 
to  Hamburg  made  fifty  miles  an  hour,  all  stops  included. 
Government  ownership  also  opens  the  way  for  the  use  of 
the  railway  for  a  social  purpose.  The  general  opinion  is 
that  the  population  is  too  ranch  centralized  in  the  large 
cities,  and  by  the  cheap  zone  or  belt  railroad  system,  soon 
to  be  opened  in  Berlin,  workmen  may  live  in  the  suburbs 
and  work  in  the  city  without  much  expense. 

"The  Government  management  of  the  railway  finances 
has  also  been  a  brilliant  success,  surpassing  all  expectations. 
In  Prussia  alone,  last  year,  after  paying  the  interest  and 
part  of  the  principal  on  the  bonded  debt,  there  was  a  sur- 
plus of  125,000,000.  The  reduction  in  fares  and  freights 
annually  amounted  to  an  annual  distribution  of  over  $25, 
000,000.  I  must  also  say  a  word  for  the  high  quality  of 
the  freight  service,  which  is  fully  equal  to  the  express  traf- 
fic in  many  parts  of  our  country.  A  trunk  can  be  sent  all 
over  Germany  with  perfect  safety  and  convenience  for  a 
mere  trifle,  while  a  few  cents  extra  will  insure  it  and  a  few 
cents  more  guarantee  its  delivery  at  a  certain  hour." 

We  urge  upon  the  American  people  the  immediate  con- 
sideration of  this  great  subject.  Already  some  of  the 
brightest  minds  connected  with  the  railway  service  are 
beginning  to  look  to  the  Government  as  the  only  refuge 
from  the  difliculties  inherent  in  the  present  system  of  pri- 
vate control.  Prominent  among  these  are  Mr.  Stickney, 
the  General  Manager  of  the  Chicago,  St.  Paul  &  Kansas 
City  Railway,  President  Blockstone,  and  many  others. 


CHAPTKR  XVII. 


THE  SUB-TREASURY. 

The  economic  consequences  of  our  civil  war,  have  been 
far-reaching  and  mighty.  Indeed,  with  the  lapse  of  time 
and  the  renaissance  of  monetary  investigation  we  are  all 
beginning  to  understand  something  of  the  tremendous  and 
ever  unfolding  issues  which  were  hidden  from  the  con- 
tending forces  in  that  gigantic  struggle. 

Considered  from  a  financial  point  of  view  the  effect  of 
the  war  was  two-fold — centrifugal  and  centripetal.  The 
first  threw  the  circulating  medium  to  the  extremities  of  the 
country,  thereby  imparting  life,  health  and  activity  to 
industry,  while  the  latter  caused  it  ever  to  return  at  the 
very  moment  it  was  needed  to  meet  the  extraordinary 
demands  of  the  Treasurj^  But  since  the  baleful  policy  of 
contraction,  in  1866,  the  centrifugal  or  radial  action  has 
been  distressingly  feeble,  while  the  centripetal  energy  has 
been  operating  under  a  full  head  of  steam.  To  stop  this 
deadly  and  eccentric  action  and  to  restore  a  healthy  equi- 
librium to  these  forces,  the  Sub-Treasury  Plan  has  been 
devised.  In  our  judgment,  it  is  the  most  valuable  formu- 
lation which  economic  science  has  ever  evolved.  We  will 
devote  a  few  pages  to  a  suggestive  examination  of  this  now 
noted  theme. 

Strictly  and  philosophically  speaking,  the  Sub-Treasury 
system  does  not  relate  to  the  question  of  how  much  money 
is  required  for  the  constant  use  of  the  people.     It  simply 


THE   SUB-TKEASUKY.  425 

calls  for  the  adoption  of  a  flexible  system  which  will  expand 
the  currency  when  more  is  needed  and  shrink  it  when  the 
demand  has  passed  away.  The  foundation  for  this  system 
will  doubtless  be  laid  by  puttino;  out,  to  start  with,  a  suffi- 
cient volume  to  meet  the  every  day  demands  of  trade,  but 
this  alone  would  not  prevent  a  stringency  at  certain 
seasons  of  the  year.  Starting  with  sufficient,  however,  the 
system  proposed  will  be  ample  to  prevent  a  scarcity  of 
currency  at  critical  junctures  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other  to  forbid  undue  inflation  when  the  normal  and 
healthful  demand  for  money  has  passed  by.  The  student 
of  economic  science  should  always  keep  the  two  questions 
entirely  separated  in  his  mind. 

The  following,  which  we  take  from  a  letter  addressed  to 
Hon.  Wm.  McKinley,  Chairman  of  the  Ways  and  Means 
Committee  of  the  House  in  the  51st  Congress,  by  Mr.  C. 
W.  Macune,  Chairman  of  the  Legislative  Committee  of  the 
Farmers  Alliance  and  Industrial  Union,  clearl}^  and  suc- 
cinctly sets  forth  the  abuse  which  the  Sub-Treasury  system 
is  designed  to  destroy.  After  making  the  very  liberal 
statement  that  there  was  not,  at  that  time,  to  exceed  one 
billion  dollars  in  actual  circulation  among  the  people,  Mr. 
Macune  said: 

"This  sum  must  do  all  the  business  of  the  country.  The 
manufacturer,  the  merchant,  the  miner,  the  banker,  pro- 
fessional men,  artisans,  and  laborers,  all  alike  complete 
a  productive  efl'ort  in  their  various  vocations  every  day. 
That  is  to  say,  each  of  these  has  an  even  and  practically 
uniform  use  for  money  throughout  the  year.  With  this 
uniform  volume  and  uniform  demand,  stability  of  prices 
might  reasonably  be  expected  if  agriculture  did  not  belong 
to  the  family,  but  it  does  and  will  as  long  as  people  eat 
bread  and  wear  clothes,  which,  however,  will  not  be  very 
long  unless  present  tendencies  are  stopped.  Agriculture 
steps  in  during  the  last  four  months  in  the  year  with  about 
five  billion  dollars'  worth  (at  present  prices)  of  products, 


426  A    CALL    TO    ACTION. 

which  she  offers  for  (and  must  have)  money.  "What  a 
demand  upon  the  one  billion  dollars  in  circulation!  In 
addition  to  doing  the  business  of  the  country,  as  it  has  been 
doing  for  eight  months,  it  must  now  take  care  of  a  business 
equal  to  five  times  its  volume.  It  will  be  surely  admitted 
as  fair  to  presume  that  the  demand  for  money  is  doubled 
during  that  period,  when  it  is  known  that  the  gross  value 
of  the  gross  output  of  all  kinds  of  manufacturing  for  the 
entire  year  of  1880  was  15,369,479,191.  When  you  con- 
sider the  relations  between  the  volume  of  money  and  the 
demand  for  its  use  you  must  admit  that  the  same  effect  will 
be  produced  by  an  increase  in  demand,  or  by  a  decrease  in 
volume.  That  is  to  say,  a  fixed  volume  of  money  with  an 
increased  demand  is  a  contraction  of  volume  just  as  certain 
as  a  fixed  demand  with  a  diminished  volume  is  a  contrac- 
tion. Therefore  the  augmented  demand  for  money  created 
by  the  marketing  of  agricultural  products  under  existing 
laws  is  attended  with  a  violent  contraction  of  the  relative 
volume  of  the  circulating  medium  of  the  country,  which 
compels  irresistibly,  a  reduction  in  prices  at  the  very  time 
when  the  farmer  must  part  with  his  product.  Mr.  Flower, 
of  New  York,  has  already  submitted  good  evidence  in 
proof  of  this,  by  showing  that  for  forty  years  the  actual 
average  fluctuation  annually  in  price  of  these  products  has 
been  fifty  per  cent,  and  it  is  an  admirable  illustration  and 
confirmation  of  the  principles  here  laid  down,  that  general 
prices  invariably  fall  with  this  relative  contraction  of  the 
volume  of  money  every  autumn.  This  enables  those  who 
have  money  to  buy  the  products  of  the  farm  during  that 
season  for  less  money  than  it  cost  the  farmer  to  produce 
them  at  the  prices  which  prevailed  in  the  spring,  when  he 
made  the  investment  in  the  productive  effort.  It  should 
not  be  forgotten  in  this  connection  that  at  all  times  the 
Government  is  taking  in  as  'Government  receipts  from 
taxes  and  revenues'  about  fifty  millions  per  month.  True, 
it  pays  out  about  the  same,  but  that  money  is  not  buying 
wheat  while  it  is  going  to  and  from  Uncle  Sam's  pocket. 

"No  man  can  deny  that  it  is  a  systematic  robbery  of  the 
farmer  to  have  a  financial  system  established  by  law  that  will 
contract  so  as  depress  prices  at  the  season  he  is  compelled 
to  sell  the  products  of  his  labor.     Of  course  the   demand 


THE    SUB-TREASURY.  427. 

for  money  is  diminished  as  the  crop  is  consumed,  and  by 
the  time  it  is  necessary  for  the  farmer  to  make  his  spring 
and  summer  investments  to  secure  a  crop,  the  vokime  of 
money,  having  less  to  do,  is  relatively  larger,  and,  as  must 
follow,  prices  are  higher.  This  is  the  truth  in  a  nutshell; 
he  buys  his  commodities  under  an  environment  that  makes 
wheat  worth  a  dollar  a  bushel,  and  is  compelled  to  sell  his 
produce  under  an  environment  that  makes  wheat  worth  fifty 
cents  a  bushel.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  most  enterpris- 
ing merchants  have  generallj'^  failed,  or  that  the  best  farm- 
ers in  the  country  have  become  involved  in  debtiJ  Do  not 
say  that  if  this  were  true  it  would  have  been  discovered 
long  ago,  and  would  not  have  been  unearthed  by  a 
modern  hay-seed  convention,  because  it  would  not.  It  is 
the  result  of  the  material  progress  that  has  developed  the 
railway  and  telegraph,  by  means  of  which  the  product  of 
agriculture  can  be  placed  on  the  markets  of  the  world  the 
very  day  it  is  harvested,  and  before  it  leaves  the  farm. 
This  has  shortened  the  season  for  harvesting  and  market- 
ing so  much  that  the  effect  of  a  stable  volume  of  money  is 
equal  to  a  violent  contraction.  There  has  been  a  rock  in 
one  end  of  the  meal  bag  long  enough,  and  it  is  time 
modern  conditions  were  recognized  and  utilized. 

"No  mere  increase  in  the  volume  of  money  by  the  free 
coinage  of  silver,  or  the  issue  of  treasury  notes,  or  the  loan- 
ing of  money  on  real  estate,  is  now  sufficient,  because  the 
farmer  is  not  in  shape  to  get  his  share  of  the  benefits  that 
would  undoubtedly  flow  from  such  measure.  He  is  behind 
the  procession.  The  laws,  as  above  shown,  discriminate 
against  him.  He  wants  the  discrimination  stopped.  He 
wants  an  equal  chanceto  share  the  benefits.  Then  increase 
the  stable  volume  and  enact  other  wise  laws,  and  he,  being 
able  to  get  his  share  of  the  benefits,  will  give  the  due 
credit.  This  principle  of  tiexibility  of  volume  to  meet  the 
flexibility  of  demand  is  so  plain  and  simple,  so  manifestly 
just  and  right,  that  students  of  political  ecomony  of  the 
future  will  rank  those  who  now  drum  up  matters  of  detail 
as  an  excuse  for  not  receiving  it,  with  those  who  ridiculed 
Columbus  when  he  demonstrated  that  the  world  was  round.'" 


428  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

This  is  au  admirable  specimen  of  clear,  philosophic  and 
unimpassioned  reasoning.  When  we  consider  that  it  is 
the  acknowledged  duty  of  the  Government  to  furnish  the 
circulating  medium  and  to  designate  the  channel  through 
which  it  shall  pass  out  to  the  people,  it  would  seem  morally 
impossible  for  our  law  makers  to  refuse  to  remedy  abuses 
which  experience  has  shown  to  be  inherent  in  the  existing 
system.  If  they  were  conscious  of  their  responsibility  to 
the  people  and  realh^  desired  the  public  welfare  they  would 
make  haste  to  do  so.  They  are  quick  to  appropriate  money 
to  remove  trivial  obstructions  in  our  navigable  streams  and 
harbors,  but  when  it  comes  to  removing  obstacles  which 
annually  throw  the  whole  commerce  of  the  country  into 
confusion,  they  shrink  back  aghast  and  palliate  their  crim- 
inal neglect  of  duty  by  denouncing  all  who  clamor  for 
reform. 

The  money  thrown  into  the  channels  of  trade  by  this 
process  will  not  operate  to  inflate,  but  simply  to  supply  a 
normal  and  legitimate  demand  which  does  not  exist  at 
other  seasons  of  the  year.  When  the  extraordinary  de- 
mand ceases,  the  extra  circulation  must  of  necessity  be 
returned  to  the  Treasury,  there  to  remain  in  the  hands  of  a 
public  servant  until  called  out  by  a  like  contingency.  It 
can  neither  be  cornered  nor  used  to  oppress  anybody. 
There  it  will  remain  the  pride  of  the  people  and  their 
absolute  guaranty  that  they  shall  have  the  protection  of 
Government  in  their  righteous  endeavor  to  husband  the 
fruits  of  their  toil.  This  will  dignify  every  department  of 
labor  and  make  it  attractive  and  remunerative.  More  still, 
it  will  put  a  premium  on  industry  and  honor  the  law  of  God 
which  requires  that  every  man  shall  eat  his  bread  in  the 
sweat  of  his  own  face. 

The  plan  is  free  from  the  objection  that  it  is  class  legis- 
lation, as  the  money  cannot  be  borrowed  for  purposes  of 


THE    SUB-TEEASURY.  429 

speculation,  but  simply  for  temporary  and  current  use. 
Being  expended  instead  of  hoarded  for  speculative  and 
usurious  purposes  it  will  pass  at  once  into  the  channels  of 
trade  giving  employment  to  labor  and  furnishing  a  market 
for  its  products.  The  laboring  man  who  does  not  borrow 
from  the  sub-treasury  will  reap  his  full  share  of  the  benefits 
through  the  increased  demands  for  his  labor  and  still  will 
be  exempt  from  its  burdens.  The  man  who  borrows  must 
return  the  money  with  the  slight  expense  attached,  while 
the  laborer  will  be  secure  in  his  increased  wages  and  find 
constant  employment  unvexed  by  Treasury  liens,  interest 
or  debt. 

THE   CONSTITUTIONALITY 

of  the  system  cannot  be  questioned.  It  is  but  a  humane 
modification  of  the  National  Banking  system  now  in  oper- 
ation. Indeed,  when  the  measure  finally  comes  to  be 
drafted  in  all  of  its  details,  the  outlines  of  the  present 
National  Banking  law,  with  the  abuses  left  out,  will  be 
taken  as  the  model  for  the  new  measure.  If  the  Govern- 
ment has  the  constitutional  authority  to  allow  the  owners 
of  United  States  bonds  to  deposit  them  with  the  Treasury 
and  receive  in  return  ninety  per  cent  of  their  face  value,  in 
National  currency,  at  a  tax  of  only  one  per  cent  per  annum, 
it  unquestionably  has  the  authority  to  let  those  who  are 
engaged  in  industrial  pursuits  have  it  at  the  same  rate  and 
upon  just  such  security  as  may  be  deemed  ample  and  safe. 
The  constitutionality  of  Government  legal  tender  issues  is 
forever  settled.  That  marvelous  Statesman  and  law-giver  of 
our  time.  General  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  has  closed  that  con- 
troversy forever,  and  the  highest  court  known  to  our  civiliza- 
tion has  placed  the  seal  of  approval  upon  his  judgment. 
There  is  nothing  left  to  cavil  about.  Now  let  the  Govern- 
ment exercise  its  high  prerogative. 


430  A    CALL   TO    ACTION. 

WHAT    OF   THE    PROFFERED    SECURITY? 

If  the  bond  is  good,  the  security  offered  by  the  sub- 
treasury  advocates  is  good  also.  The  value  of  the  bond 
depends  upon  the  wealth-producing  and  productive  energy 
of  the  people.  And  so  of  every  other  thing  which  we  call 
valuable  in  the  world. 

Every  form  of  speculative  enterprise  which  has  its  lines 
thrown  into  the  future,  derives  its  vitality  and  hope  for 
return  upon  the  annual  harvests  of  the  world.  This  is  all 
the  security  there  is  for  anything.  The  value  of  the  earth 
itself  as  a  home  for  the  children  of  men  depends  upon  the 
returns  which  follow  the  recurrence  of  seed-time  and  harvest. 

WILL  THE  MONET  BE  GOOD? 

The  industrial  organizations  of  the  country  have  never 
called  for  an  unlimited  issue  of  money,  nor  can  they  be 
frightened  by  the  sinister  cry  of  inflation.  All  they  ask  is 
for  a  well-guarded  system  which  shall  furnish  an  ample 
and  stable  body  of  currency,  with  proper  safe-guards  as 
to  the  amount  to  be  issued  and  sensible  restrictions  concern- 
ing the  quantity  to  be  obtained  by  any  one  person.  The 
method  of  placing  our  money  in  circulation  cannot,  in  any 
manner,  affect  its  value.  The  guaranty  of  the  Govern- 
ment makes  the  National  bank  note  worth  its  face,  although 
it  is  passed  out  to  the  banks  at  a  tax  which  merely  covers 
the  cost  of  production.  If  issued  to  a  private  individual 
it  would  be  in  every  respect  as  valuable. 

The  necessary  increase  of  the  money  volume  required 
for  present  purposes  and  which  should  and  doubtless  will 
precede  the  inauguration  of  this  system,  can  also  be  placed 
in  circulation  by  private  loans,  at  the  same  rates  and  upon 
the  same  security.  It  can  also  be  placed  in  cii-culation  in 
a  variety   of  other  ways.     The   economic   problems   now 


THE    SUB-TREA.SURY. '  431 

pressing  for  soli  tion  are  likely  to  afford  ample  facilities 
for  the  expenditure  of  public  money.  There  need  be  no 
imeasiness  from  that  quarter.  The  reader  will  uuderstaud 
that  we  have  here  only  attempted  to  give  a  partial  out- 
line of  this  great  controversy.  To  properly  discuss  the 
question  a  volume  greater  than  this  would  have  to  be 
written.  We  trust,  however,  that  sufficient  has  been  sug- 
gested to.  induce  a  candid  consideration  of  the  subject. 


CHAPTKR     XVIIl. 


REMEDIES  CONSIDERITD. 

Three  things  must  concur  in  all  matters  relating  to 
human  endeavor  before  success  can  reasonably  be  antici- 
pated: First,  a  definite  mental  conception  of  the  thing 
necessary  to  be  done;  second,  a  determination  of  the  will 
that  it  shall  be  done ;  and  third,  the  careful  selection  and 
timely  application  of  instrumentalities  necessary  to  accom- 
plish the  desired  result.  Indeed,  in  ordinary  transactions, 
which  relate  to  the  daily  wants  and  vicissitudes  of  ihe  indi- 
vidual and  the  family,  we  are  all  conscious  of  this  three- 
fold process  in  our  minds. 

If  it  were  possible  for  this  triumvirate  of  concept,  will 
and  action  to  be  withdrawn  for  a  single  day  in  any  com- 
munity, chaos  would  ensue  as  quickly  as  darkness  would 
follow  the  blotting  out  of  the  sun.  The  same  result  would 
follow,  if  by  the  force  of  our  will,  or  the  lack  of  its  exer- 
cise, the  functions  of  any  one  member  of  this  trinity  should 
be  suspended  in  their  operation. 

This  explains  the  cause  and  discloses  the  source  of  the 
present  chaotic  condition  of  politics  in  our  Republic.  Most 
men  make  a  stagger  at  business,  not  knowing  exactly  what 
they  want  even  in  this,  and  then  transfer  all  matters  per- 
taining to  Government  to  the  charlatans  and  the  bosses. 
The  rightful  and  proper  rulers  of  the  country  are  generally 
asleep,  and  the  butler  is  dispensing  the  hospitalities  of  the 
mansion  to  the  thieves  and  vagabonds  in  the  pantry.     The 


HEMEDIES   CONSTDEIKED.  433 

proprietor  hears  them  and  the  servant  comes  to  the  door 
and  tells  him  not  to  be  disturbed  but  to  sleep  on  and  he 
will  call  him  at  the  proper  time. 

It  has  been  the  constant  custom,  for  a  full  quarter  of  a 
century,  for  the  people  of  this  country  to  biennially  elect 
a  Congress,  and  quadrennially  an  entire  administration, 
without  any  reference  whatever  to  what  is  necessary  to  be 
done.  When  this  result  has  been  accomplished,  the  people 
all  fall  to  wondering  what  Congress  is  going  to  do!  Hav- 
ing no  conception  of  what  should  be  done  ourselves  and 
hence  no  determination  that  it  shall  be  done,  it  is  of  course 
hard  for  us  to  understand  that  there  is  any  intention  in 
that  august  body  to  do  anything  whatever.  In  fact  we 
seem  to  realize  that  they  were  not  elected  to  do  anything 
and  are  disturbed  when  we  contemplate  even  the  possi- 
bility that  we  may  be  disappointed. 

Then,  there  is  our  President  whom  we  have  just  elected. 
How  does  he  stand  upon  the  important  questions  of  land, 
money,  transportation  and  labor?  We  know  nothing  about 
it;  and  now  that  he  is  really  elected  we  would  like  to 
become  acquainted  with  his  views.  Only  one  thing,  how- 
ever, is  certain:  The  president-elect  was  in  favor  of  the 
last  war ! 

Thus  it  is  demonstrated  that  we  did  not  know  what  we 
wanted  nor  what  we  were  voting  for  when  we  cast  our 
ballots.  The  candidates  elected  were  supported,  not  be- 
cause it  was  definitely  known  that  they  were  iii  favor  of 
anything  in  particular,  but  simply  because  we  thought,  at 
the  time,  that  we  could  prevent  the  other  crowd  from  get- 
ting the  offices  and  could  secure  them  for  a  few  manipu- 
lators who  happened  to  belong  to  our  side.  The  fact  that 
the  spirit  of  inquiry,  as  to  how  their  public  servants  stand, 
always  manifests  itself  after  the  election  instead  of  before, 
affords  positive  proof  that  the  people  were  conscious  that 


434  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

they  were  taking  a  leap  in  the  dark  when  they  voted,  and 
had  serious  doubts  at  the  time,  as  to  whether  they  were 
doing  right  or  wrong.  It  is  the  annual  repetition  of  this 
frightful  popular  abuse  which  fills  even  the  aimless  leaders 
of  the  aimless  parties  of  the  period  with  contempt  for  the 
great  mass  of  voters.  We  should  all  understand  that  it  is 
the  resolute  man  of  purpose  who  is  always  feared.  The 
scoundrels  in  politics  do  not  care  a  single  groat  for  any 
other  type  of  man. 

Did  anybody  ever  have  any  doubts  about  the  policy  of 
General  Jackson's  or  Abraham  Lincoln's  administrations? 
They  were  chosen  to  do  something.  After  their  elevation 
to  office  public  inquiry  was  directed  simply  to  the  details 
of  the  contemplated  legislation.  Everybody  knew  the 
character  of  the  measures  which  were  to  be  brought  for- 
ward and  the  general  spirit  and  purposes  of  the  Admin- 
istration.    Hence,  the 

FIRST   GREAT  REMEDY 

for  which  all  should  labor,  is  the  election  of  a  National 
ticket  and  Congress  pledged  to  a  platform  formulated  by 
the  industrial  organizations  themselves,  and  which  shall 
substantially  and  clearly  set  forth  the  reforms  desired. 
!No  person  who  is  both  candid  and  intelligent  will  pretend 
that  such  a  result  can  be  secured  except  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  a  united  vote  of  all  who  desire  the  specified 
reforms,  cast  for  the  same  ticket  at  the  same  time.  This 
will  give  to  the  movement  an  open  and  controlling  mission, 
and  to  the  Administration,  when  elected,  a  definite  pur- 
pose. Neither  can  these  ends  be  accomplished  through 
the  instrumentality  of  parties  which  have  no  test  of 
membership.  If  they  are  void  of  such  test  they  have 
no  purpose  and  can  accomplish  nothing  of  importance 
for  the  world.     But  if  the  voter  has  a  vague  conception 


EEMEDIES    CONSIDERED.  435 

of  what  is  needful  and  has  no  purpose  or  will  to  demand 
needed  reforms,  he  is  quite  certain  to  make  a  mistake  when 
he  comes  to  handle  political  machinery.  Such  tools  are 
dangerous  in  the  hands  of  thoughtless  men. 

Again,  having  determined  the  controlling  or  basic  prin- 
ciple which  we  wish  to  have  enacted  into  law,  we  should 
rest  content  with  its  plain  and  candid  enunciation  until  a 
Congress  is  secured  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  grapple  with 
the  details  of  the  system. 

The  beautiful  Declaration  of  our  fathers,  that  "All  men 
are  created  equal  and  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  cer- 
tain inalienable  rights,  among  which  are  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness;  and  to  secure  these  ends  Govern- 
ments are  instituted  among  men,  deriving  their  just 
powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed,"  is  the  most 
wonderful  political  enunciation  in  any  language;  and  yet 
it  is  absolutely  free  from  every  manner  of  detail.  Had  the 
wise  heads  of  that  period  undertaken  to  specify  the  details 
of  legislation  necessary  to  make  their  Declaration  effec- 
tive when  the  mother  country  should  be  overthrown,  it 
would  have  been  impossible  for  them  ever  to  have  agreed. 
The  Declaration  probably  would  never  have  been  issued, 
and  it  is  certain  that  the  Constitution  would  never  have 
been  framed.  Hence,  from  this  view  of  the  situation,  we 
rejoice  to  know  that  the  tendency  among  reformers,  during 
the  half  dozen  years  last  past,  is  to  drop  details  and  content 
themselves  with  clear  statements  of  the  underlying  prin- 
ciples to  be  attained.  It  is  said  concerning  a  dilemma  not 
unlike  that  of  which  we  are  speaking,  that  the  children  of 
mammon  were  wiser  in  tlieir  day  than  the  children  of  light. 
The  plutocratic  leaders  are  too  long-headed  to  disclose  the 
details  of  their  plans.  The}^  keep  them  concealed.  If  they 
did  not  they  could  never  accomplish  anything.  An  exper- 
ienced hunter  never  sends  out  his  heralds  to  notify  the 


436  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

coveted  stag  tliat  he  wants  his  saddle  for  a  Christmas  festi- 
val. If  he  did  the  fleet-footed  ranger  would  be  off  to  other 
pastures.  Is  this  deception?  Most  certainly  not.  It  is 
simply  the  exercise  in  public  affairs  of  that  ordinary  caution 
which  we  properly  apply  in  every  day  life.  Let  your  main 
declaration  of  purpose  be  plain,  sincere  and  unequivocal 
and  then  leave  to  the  legislator  the  consideration  of  details 
when  it  is  made  his  duty  to  do  so. 

SPECIFIC   KEMEDIES. 

For  a  more  specific  statement  of  the  remedies  necessary 
to  start  our  dissipated  civilization  upon  its  return  to  health, 
we  are  forced  for  want  of  space  to  refer  the  reader  to  the 
several  chapters  of  this  book  where  he  will  find  the  reme- 
dial features  of  the  controversy  as  fully  discussed  as  the 
limits  of  this  volume  would  permit.  We  will  suggest  in 
conclusion,  however,  that  the  great  object  of  the  Industrial 
movement  now  challenging  public  attention,  is  to  restore  to 
Congress  its  Constitutional  and  exclusive  control  over  the 
great  limbs  of  commerce,  money,  transportation  and  teleg- 
raphy; and  to  devise  such  an  equitable  system  of  land-holding 
as  shall  enable  the  people  to  secure  homes  without  interfer- 
ing with  vested  rights  already  acquired.  These  great  facili- 
ties, so  essential  to  life,  prosperity  and  happiness  have  been 
wrenched  from  the  people  and  passed  to  the  control  of 
monopolists.  To  reclaim  them  is  the  great  duty  of  the 
hour.  The  Ocala  platform  points  out  the  way  in  which  it 
can  be  done.  For  a  generation  the  great  object  lessons  of 
current  business  life  have  impressed  the  world  with  tho 
idea  that  the  laborer  was  the  subject  of  monopoly  by  birth, 
and  that  he  had  no  rights  which  those  institutions  are 
bound  to  respect.  This  assumption  of  power  is  passing 
away.  The  doctrine  of  the  "divine  right  of  kings"  is  a 
fiction  addressed  to  the  superstition  of  mankind  to  justify 


KEMEDIES   CONSIDEKED.  4:37 

usurpation.  The  "  prerogatives  of  the  crown  "  consist  of 
the  raped  liberties  of  the  people.  The  doctrine  of  hered- 
itary titles  is  of  the  same  nature  and  was  invented  to  cir- 
jjumvent  popular  disfavor.  And  so  of  all  the  pretentions 
.•of  the  Trusts  and  corporate  barons  of  the  period.  But  at 
flast  that  liberty-giving  conception,  that  the  people  have 
!some  divine  and  hereditary  rights  which  governments  are 
?)rganized  to  secure,  has  dawned  upon  the  world  and  we 
"welcome  its  light. 

"We  can  not  refrain  from  closing  this  chapter  by  quoting 
the  following  sterling  and  rugged  letter  from  the  late  Ben- 
jamin F.  Wade.  It  has  so  much  of  the  fire  of  the  60's  in 
it,  and  is  so  characteristic  of  the  integrity  of  its  author,  that 
the  readers  of  this  volume  will  be  glad  to  accord  it  the  nec- 
essary room. 

Vice-President's  Chamber,  ) 
Washington,  D.  C,  December  13,  1867.  j 
Tours  of  the  8th  inst.  is  received,  and  I  most  cordially  agree  with 
every  word  and  sentence  of  it.  I  am  for  the  laboring  portion  of 
our  people.  The  rich  can  take  care  of  themselves.  While  1  must 
scrupulously  live  up  to  all  the  contracts  of  the  Government,  and 
fight  repudiation  to  the  death,  I  will  fight  the  bond  holder  as  reso- 
lutely when  he  undertakes  to  get  more  than  the  pound  of  flesh.  We 
never  agreed  to  pay  the  5-20's  in  gold ;  no  man  can  find  it  in  the  bond, 
and  I  never  will  consent  to  have  one  payment  for  the  bond  holders 
and  another  for  the  people.  It  would  sink  any  party,  and  it  ought 
to.  To  talk  of  specie  payments  or  a  return  to  specie  under  present 
ciroumstances,  is  to  talk  like  a  fool.  It  would  destroy  the  country 
as  effectualty  as  a  fire,  and  any  contraction  of  the  currency  at  this 
time  is  about  as  bad.     But  I  have  not  time  to  give  my  ideas  in  full. 

Yours  truly, 

Benjamin  F.  Wade. 
Captain  A.  Denny,  Eaton,  Ohio. 


CHAPTKR  XIX. 


THE  GREAT  UPRISING. 

The  financial  storm  which  opened  upon  this  country  in 
the  autumn  of  1873,  quickly  expanded  into  a  tempest 
which  swept  with  fury  every  section  of  the  Union.  It  was 
accompanied  by  strange  phenomena  which  temporarily 
baffled  the  wisest  heads  in  the  land.  Unlike  former  catas- 
trophes of  the  kind  the  confidence  of  the  people  in  their 
currency  remained  unshaken  from  first  to  last.  If  a  man 
could  command  either  form  of  our  currency  he  felt  secure 
from  disaster.  The  paper  money  was  the  mountain  summit 
which  bid  defiance  to  the  floods,  while  the  productive  in- 
dustries were  the  low-lands  submerged  and  swept  by  the 
raging  torrent.  In  all  former  panics  the  currency  was  first 
to  give  way — the  first  reed  that  was  broken. 

The  prolonged  stay  of  this  calamity  led  to  wide-spread 
investigation  as  to  its  causes,  which  happily  resulted  in  a 
general  revival  of  economic  learning.  Men  began  to  in- 
quire anew  into  systems  and  to  dig  down  to  the  very  bed- 
rock of  democratic  institutions.  Fortunately,  they  had  the 
lamp  of  their  own  personal  experience  to  guide  them,  and 
a  whole  generation  of  living  men  and  women  as  their  wit- 
nesses. Upon  examination  they  ascertained  exactly  where 
the  black  plague  had  started  and  who  were  responsible  for 
its  inoculation. 

A  protracted  period  of  educational  effort  followed  and 
for  years  it  ebbed  and  flowed  like  the  tides.     It  was  an  ex- 


THE   GKEAT   TJPKISING.  439, 

pensive  school  but  it  graduated  strong  men  and  sent  them 
forth  by  the  hundred  equipped  for  the  controversy  destined 
to  follow. 

Truth  is  a  marvelous  weapon ;  it  transforms  itself  into  a 
thousand  shapes,  but  it  is  always  the  truth. 

Sometimes  it  is  keen  and  lithe  like  a  Damascus  blade 
and  again  heavy,  blunt  and  jagged  like  a  savage  battle-ax 
of  the  medieval  age.  This  wonderful  agency  has  done  its 
work  during  the  nineteen  years  just  passed.  The  farmers 
through  their  Grange  movement  led  the  way.  Then  fol- 
lowed the  Peter  Cooper  movement  led  by  the  purest 
philanthropist  of  the  times,  and  represented  upon  the 
hustings  by  one  of  the  most  brilliant,  powerful  and  persua- 
sive orators  which  this  country  has  ever  produced,  Gen. 
Samuel  F.  Gary,  of  Ohio.  Succeeding  this  came  the  Union 
Labor  party,  and  now  the  united  movement  of  all  the 
industrial  forces  of  the  continent.  Through  all  this  period 
those  who  have  administered  public  affairs — presidents 
and  cabinets,  law-makers  and  parties — have  unwittingly 
wrought  in  unison  with  the  patient  efforts  of  self-sacrificing 
philanthropists  to  unerringly  demonstrate,  in  a  variety  of 
ways,  that  all  of  the  accusations  which  had  been  made 
against  them  and  against  existing  leadership,  were  abso- 
lutely true  and  that  no  good  thing  could  be  expected  of 
them. 

"We  have  also  had  the  contrasts  of  bountiful  harvests 
accompanied  by  ever-existing  destitution;  of  penury  fol- 
lowing close  upon  the  track  of  industry;  of  vast  armies  of 
homeless  tramps  ever  wandering  alongside  of  vacant  land 
held  for  speculation;  of  employers  building  palaces  in  for- 
eign lands  out  of  profits  filched  from  toil,  and  labor  forced 
into  the  maelstrom  of  strikes,  riots  and  lock-outs;  of  armed 
mercenaries  usurping  the  place  of  regular  police;  of  cor- 
porations crowding  the  individual  to  the  wall  and  ti*amp- 


440  A   CALL  TO   ACTION, 

ling  the  poor  into  the  dust;  of  one-half  of  every  city  set 
apart  for  the  abode  of  Lazzaroni  and  the  other  for  the 
sumptuous  palaces  of  the  rich  and  powerful.  Such  things 
— such  aggravating  contrasts  have  aided  to  con\'ince  the 
judgment  and  ripen  the  convictions  of  millions  of  honest 
men  and  women  dwelling  in  every  section  of  the  Union. 
Of  one  accord  they  have  risen  up,  pledged  fidelity  to  one 
another  and  sworn  that  these  things  shall  cease.  Nor  is 
this  the  result  of  the  hasty  ebullition  of  passion.  It  is 
the  outcome  of  sober  conviction  based  upon  thorough 
investigation  and  verified  by  personal  experience.  It  is 
sanctified  by  the  convictions  of  justice  and  the  promptings 
of  charity.  It  has  passed  the  point  of  experimental  en- 
deavor and  reached  the  plane  of  lofty  resolve  where  the 
Golden  Rule  becomes  the  law  of  the  conscience  and  where 
personal  sacrifice  is  welcomed  as  a  boon. 

Such  is  the  character — such  the  interpretation  of  this 
mighty  movement.  It  bodes  no  ill  to  our  country  or  to  man- 
kind. Its  mission  is  one  of  justice  and  peace.  It  is  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Master  in  motion  among  men  and  is  prompted 
by  charity  for  all  and  malice  toward  none.  It  is  the  eagle 
tempered  with  the  dove — the  paw  of  the  Lion  of  the  tribe 
of  Judah  interposed  to  raise  our  prostrate  industries  from 
the  dust.  It  proposes  to  hail  and  salute  the  advent  of  the 
twentieth  century  with  the  glad  songs  of  emancipated  la- 
bor and  to  present  the  world  with  an  illuminated  copy  of  our 
glorious  Declaration  of  Independence  enacted  into  law  and 
reduced  to  practice  in  the  daily  life  of  the  Republic. 


CHAPTKR  XX. 

DANGER  AND  DUTY. 

The  American  people  have  entered  upon  the  mightiest 
civic  struajgle  known  to  their  history.  Many  of  the  giant 
wrongs  which  they  are  seeking  to  overthrow  are  as  old  as 
the  race  of  man  and  are  rock-rooted  in  the  ignorant  preju- 
dices and  controlling  customs  of  every  nation  in  Christen- 
dom. We  must  expect  to  be  confronted  by  a  vast  and 
splendidly  equipped  army  of  extortionists,  usurers  and  op- 
pressors marshalled  from  every  nation  under  heaven.  Every 
instrumentality  known  to  man, — the  state  with  its  civic 
authority,  learning  with  its  lighted  torch,  armies  with  their 
commissions  to  take  life,  instruments  of  commerce  essential 
to  commercial  intercourse,  and  the  very  soil  upon  which  we 
live,  move  and  have  our  being — all  these  things  and  more, 
are  being  perverted  and  used  to  enslave  and  impoverish 
the  people.  The  Golden  Kule  is  rejected  by  the  heads  of 
all  the  great  departments  of  trade,  and  the  law  of  Cain, 
which  repudiates  the  obligations  that  we  are  mutually 
under  to  one  another,  is  fostered  and  made  the  rule  of  ac- 
tion throughout  the  world.  Corporate  feudality  has  taken 
the  place  of  chattle  slavery  and  vaunts  its  power  in  every 
state. 

The  light  of  past  civilization  is  shining  full  upon  us 
all,  and  knowing  that  cause  and  effect  follow  closely  upon 
each  other,  we  believe  that  we  fairly  discern  the  outlines 
of  the  main  events  which  the  near  future  has  in  store  for 


442  A   CALL   TO    ACTION. 

the  American  people.  We  do  not  claim  to  see  clearly  all 
the  concomitant  phenomena  destined  to  follow  the  social 
earthquake  just  at  hand.  Such  prevision  is  not  accorded 
to  man.  But  of  this  much  we  are  certain:  In  their  flight 
from  their  task  masters  the  people  have  about  reached  the 
Eed  Sea.  "We  can  not  retreat.  Either  the  floods  will  be 
parted  for  us  and  close,  as  of  old,  upon  our  pursurers,  or  a 
life  and  death  strugj^le  will  ensue  between  oppressors  and 
oppressed — between  those  who  would  destroy  and  enslave 
and  those  who  are  seeking  to  enter  into  the  inheritance  pre- 
pared for  them  by  a  beneficent  Father.  Our  danger  lurks 
in  the  alternative  stated.  It  behooves  every  man  who 
desires  a  peaceful  solution  of  our  ever  increasing  complica- 
tions to  do  all  in  his  power  to  make  the  deliverance  peace- 
ful and  humane.  To  further  postpone  the  controversy  is 
to  invite  chaos  and  challenge  the  arbitrament  of  the  sword. 
Our  past  experience  should  be  sujQScient  to  warn  us  to  steer 
clear  of  this  abyss  of  peril  and  the  hell  of  war. 

All  the  Nations  of  antiquity  were  scourged  exactly  as  our 
people  are  now  being  scourged.  They  were  afflicted,  they 
conplained,  rebelled  and  perished  —  oppressors  and 
oppressed  together.  Their  innate  sense  of  justice  enabled 
them  to  discern  clearly  between  right  and  wrong,  but  their 
passion  for  revenge  and  thirst  for  blood  made  it  impossible 
for  the  people  to  retain  power  even  when  the  fortunes  of 
war  had  placed  it  in  their  hands. 

But  thanks  to  the  all- conquering  strength  of  Christian 
enlightenment  we  are  at  the  dawn  of  the  golden  age  of 
popular  power.  We  have  unshaken  faith  in  the  integrity 
and  final  triumph  of  the  people.  But  their  march  to  power 
will  not  be  unobstructed.  The  universal  uprising  of  the 
industrial  forces  will  result  in  unifying  the  monopolistic 
and  plutocratic  elements  also,  and  tlirough  the  business 
and    social  influences   of  these   potential   and   awakened 


DANGER   AND   DTTTT.  448 

forces,  thousands  of  well-meaning  professional  and  busi- 
ness men  of  all  classes  will  be  induced,  for  a  time,  to  make 
common  cause  against  us.  This  makes  it  necessary  for 
the  friends  of  reform  to  put  forth  herculean  efforts  to  dis- 
abuse the  minds  of  well-meaning  people  concerning  the 
underlying  objects  of  the  movement,  and  this  calls  for  sys- 
tematic, energetic,  and  constant  educational  work,  cover- 
ing the  whole  range  of  the  reforms  proposed.  It  is  also 
the  surest  method  of  overcoming  the  obstacle  of  indiffer- 
ence among  the  people. 

We  must  also  be  prepared  to  see  the  two  well-organized 
and  equipped  political  parties  march  to  the  assistance  of 
each  other  at  critical  points  along  the  line.  The  leaders 
will  spare  no  effort  to  accomplish  this  end.  Two  influences, 
now  at  work,  are  ample  to  at  least  partially  precipitate 
this  result — the  use  of  money  and  the  community  of  dan- 
ger inspired  by  the  appearance  of  the  new  political  force. 
The  great  mass  of  voters  should  be  faithfully  warned  of  this 
danger  before  designing  leaders  have  made  the  attempt 
to  mislead  them.  In  this  manner  the  evil  consequences 
of  their  efforts  can  be  largely  averted. 

THE  GREAT  DANGER. 

If  the  economic  revolution  now  in  progress  in  the  United 
States  is  not  speedily  successful,  the  industrial  people  will 
have  no  one  to  blame  but  themselves .  Through  suffering 
and  research  they  have  learned  the  causes  of  their  distress. 
They  have  organized,  decided  upon  remedies  and  made 
known  their  demands.  They  have  the  numbers  to  make 
their  wishes  effective.  The  Constitution  and  laws  of  the 
country  place  the  whole  matter  within  their  hands.  The 
great  initial  battles  have  been  fought  in  the  Courts  and 
this   constitutes  their  Gibraltar  and  impregnable  vantage 


444  A   CALL   TO   ACTION. 

ground.     Nothing  is  now  needed  but  a  proper  use  of  the 
ballot. 

If  the  friends  of  reform  will  make  one  united  and  fearless 
effort  the  victory  will  be  won.  FideKty  to  truth,  to  home, 
to  family  and  to  the  brotherhood  of  purpose  is  all  that  is 
required.  Capital  possesses  one  thing  which  labor  does  not 
— ready  cash.  They  will  not  hesitate  to  make  the  best 
possible  use  of  it.  But  labor  possesses  that  which  capital 
does  not — numbers.  They  should  be  made  effective.  Will 
they  longer  refuse  to  make  use  of  the  peaceful  weapon 
which  their  fathers  placed  in  their  hands  ?  If  we  will  not 
■with  courage  and  conscience  choose  the  methods  of  peace, 
the  sword  is  inevitable.  Persistent  oppression  on  the  one 
hand  and  neglect  to  make  proper  use  of  the  ballot  on  the 
other,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  call  for  the  application 
of  force  as  the  only  solution.  Avenging  armies  always 
follow  close  upon  the  heels  of  legalized  injustice.  If  we 
would  escape  the  sword  we  must  at  once  conquer  through 
the  power  of  truth  and  through  knowledge  incai-nated  and 
set  in  motion. 

Let  us  all  remember  that  the  various  organizations,  now 
so  powerful,  cannot  always  be  maintained.  They  will 
decay  with  time  and  fall  to  pieces  from  lack  of  purpose  or 
the  discouragements  of  defeat.  Our  enemies  well  under- 
stand this  and  are  urging  procrastination  and  pleading  for 
time.  As  well  might  the  general  of  an  army  send  a  bearer 
of  dispatches,  under  a  flag  of  truce,  to  ask  the  commander 
of  the  opposing  forces  when  he  would  like  to  have  the 
engagement  brought  on.  If  the  general  consulted  were 
weak  in  numbers  he  would  decide  to  postpone  the  battle 
until  such  time  as  the  forces  of  his  adversary  could  be 
wasted  by  death,  disease  and  desertion. 


DANSEK   AND   DUTY.  445 

STKIKE   now! 

We  have  challenored  the  adversary  to  battle  and  our 
bufijles  have  sounded  the  march.  If  we  now  seek  to 
evade  or  shrink  from  the  conflict  it  will  amount  to  a  con- 
fession of  cowardice  and  a  renunciation  of  the  faith. 
Let  us  make  the  year  1892  memorable  for  all  time  to  come 
as  the  period  when  the  great  battle  for  industrial  emanci- 
pation was  fought  and  won  in  the  United  States.  It  is 
glorious  to  live  in  this  age,  and  to  be  permitted  to  take 
part  in  this  heroic  combat  is  the  greatest  honor  that  can  be 
conferred  upon  mortals.  It  is  an  opportunity  for  every 
man,  however  humble,  to  strike  a  blow  that  will  perman- 
ently benefit  his  race  and  make  the  world  better  for  his 
having  lived.  Throughout  all  history  we  have  had  ample 
evidence  that  the  new  world  is  the  theater  upon  which  the 
great  struggle  for  the  rights  of  man  is  to  be  made,  and 
the  righteous  movement  now  in  progress  should  again 
forcibly  remind  us  of  our  enviable  missionv  under  Provi* 
dence,  among  the  nations  of  th©  earthi 


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